Final Book Design

Below are screen shots of my final book design.

I am very pleased with my final outcome ans have learnt an enormous amount about how to design a book as well as practising my portraiture. A very enjoyable module at Salford University!

Avedon Book Inspiration

I liked the boarder that Avedons book had around the edge of each photographs, I think that it  creates a frame which encases the photograph and glorifies it. I thought that it would be beneficial to copy this idea and use this for my book layout. 

Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus book "An Aperture Monograph" was the main influence for my book layout. I liked the minimal look and how the photographs were laid out on only the right hand side. i did put my own 'twist' into the layout by choosing not that have nay text on the left page of each spread, partly because I didn't find it worth while adding any irrelevant information.

The above photograph shows the layout of Arbus book which interested me in the first place. The uniform fashion will help to back up my idea that each person is unique but still part of the same race, human.

Other Artists/ Photographers Who Influenced Me

Helen Levitt


The main thing that I like about Levitts work is how natural all of her photographs are, as you would expect with a documentary photographer. Her presence seems to be 'in the right pleace at the right time' and with this she captures some truly beautiful photographs.

Charles Fregar

Charles Fréger is a French photographer born in 1975.  He tirelessly continues his “Portraits Photographiques et Uniformes” project, including a catalog of pictures of  legionnaires, water polo players, English school girls, Finnish synchronised ice skaters, ex-communist scouts from Budapest, majorettes, Japanese sumo wrestlers, beauty contestants in Singapore, young Vietnamese Buddhists, Roman Corazzieri, Vatican Swiss guards, Spanish penitents, Northern Irish Orange men, and Pekinese opera singers. His portraits, although poetic, are far from psychological. There’s nothing picturesque about them either.  He photographs his subjects like an entomologist pins his insects. There’s also a touch of sociology and ethnology with his inexhaustible inventories of the most extraordinarily diverse social groups, many of which are slowly becoming extinct.  These archives of social bodies, in a state of mutation, these families of mankind, if you like, are documented on a human scale, and free of embarrassing sentimentality; they form the inventory of this 34-year-old French photographer.

His photographs have a pantingly like look about them, as though the people look almost fake. Due to his choice of subjects, some social groups that are declining these days, I think that the pantingly feel about the photographs backs up that one day the groups will be a thing of the past/ imaginary.

Technique

In order to make each model react in a certain way, I had to manipulate them through talking to them as well as the natural power that one has when taking someones photograph. I tried not to talk to the models, using Richard Avedons technique of making the model feel alone. This leaves the model feeling isolated and can cause awkward poses which would be beneficial for my project.

Due to the nature of the photographs and the fact that I was asking members of the public, I had to introduce myself and give each person an idea of what the photographs were for. I tried to keep this introduction short in order to minimise the impact on their pose.

Poster

I decided to try and get models to photograph through designing a poster and displaying it on notice boards around the university. Several people got back to me about the photographs and I believe it was a great idea. Below is a photograph which shows how the poster looked.

Final Photographs