Having a physical copy of the earlier books to work from has a number of advantages. First of all I can now see how the colour and brightness of the images compares with what I was seeing on the computer screen. Only a hard proof can really demonstrate this. I have carefully calibrated my screens, however, no matter how well this is done there will still be a difference. Both books are as I could have hoped. In the case of Blurb I have always been happy with their quality and fidelity, one reason I continue to use them in spite of the less than ideal range book sizes that they support.
Secondly I can now see how my design works as a physical object. When looking at a book layout on the screen we look at a flat 2 dimensional object with no spacing between the pages. Even though a page is also 2 dimensional a book exists in 3 dimensions. The way the pages sit next to each other separated by the spine and gutter is very different to the computer screen, there is more separation. Colour is also somewhat more muted in the light reflected from the page rather than that transmitted through a sheet of glass, which reduces some of the more extreme contrasts.
I now plan to spend the next 2 or 3 days re-assessing my image selection for the book and then how to sequence, and how to balance images on two pages spreads. I am going to be more liberal in the page design, but more thoughtful in the sequencing.
Before starting that process, I have been revisiting my own earlier book designs, as well as the new Fest books, plus an ongoing look at professional photobooks I have in my collection.
To date I have created 18 individual Blurb books, starting in 2008 with "Diving the Celebes Sea". This was a retrospective look at underwater photographs that I had taken the previous couple of years. All of the photographs were taken scuba diving in the Celebes Sea a part of the Pacific that sits in a triangle South of the Philippines, East of Malaysian Borneo and West of Sulawesi in Indonesia. This is my favorite part of the world and somewhere we have return to again and again, we have now visited the region on 8 separate occasions. The problem with the book was that I simply had too much material and no experience in book design. The result was 210 pages and well over 400 individual photographs:
This was simply too much for the uninitiated to cope with. My model was based on other underwater photography books, which also (in retrospect) tried to overwhelm the viewer with variety and intensity. The book got across the incredible diversity, but was basically a stamp collection. Since then I have created a new photobook to chronicle each trip and as a convenient way of printing and storing the images.
Although this is still a very busy page it is more considered in design and has text explaining what the viewer is looking at. The photographs have some space to breath and although there are very many they are all thematically and to a degree visually related. I am, however, still caught up in black pages, at the time I thought that added to the vibrancy of the images, now I just think it is ugly. Most recently, in 2011 I produced the latest book "Sabah" which was deliberately a photographic study of the underwater world, versus a book explaining the creatures that dwell there
This very colourful 2 page spread now uses white space to separate the images and I have tried to balance the two images with one another. I am yet to compile a book for my 2012 trip, it has been on the back burner due to pressure from the course, however, I do need to revisit this as I would like to have a copy ready for Christmas - gift for Mum who accompanied us on the trip.
Other than underwater photography the main stay of my book publishing career to date has been weddings. I average about 1 wedding per year and in each case produce a book for my own purposes, but available to the couple and their relatives if they want to buy it. A key advantage of Blurb is that once I post the book and make it public the couple can create as many copies as they wish without my intervention. I make these books as a gradual process of building a wedding portfolio. I don't have an ambition to be a wedding photographer, but pragmatism demands that I keep all options open, money is money, starving artists starve!
My early forays into book design were horribly similar to the earlier underwater books, loads of images and back pages, what was I thinking. Ah well, the books were gifts to the couples as was my time, they got the photos on a disk and were free to do there won thing if they wished. Since then I have learned a great deal about presentation and design, however, strangely in the two weddings I did in 2011 both couples wanted multi-photo pages and a strong variation in page design. It seems that in the internet age, people want books that look to a degree like web pages.
I start with Kati and Tobi's wedding:
They were delighted with the book and in particular these two spreads. I think part of the appeal is that the multi-photo spreads enable a story to be told, here it is the reception. I have taken care to ensure that the photographs have a visual and colour coherence and tried to convey the atmosphere of the event.
I also produce a more traditional look on some pages, these are taken from Tina and Manuel's wedding:
As with Kati & Tobi they wanted a mixture of B&W and colour, liking the nostalgia and tradition of monochrome. I went for a portrait aspect ratio for this book versus the landscape of the previous volume. Personally I think this better suits weddings as it allows easier inclusion of full length portrait shots and also works well with a 2 page single photo full-bleed. Heidi and I disagree on this one, and as she is my second shooter she gets to be heard - we make a good wedding team.
More recently I have started to create books to supplement and support my OCA development. At the end of last year I compiled two volumes using material from Assignment 5 of P&P and Assignment 3 of Landscape. In both cases I had a wealth of good material that was unused due to the very limited number of images needed for submission. My friends and relatives are getting used to the idea that a photobook will appear in their Christmas stocking with my name on the spine. The first book was simply titled "U" and is a visual study of the Munich underground railway system:
I was fascinated by the symmetries and angles of the confined world of the subway, less so with the people. I used about 4 different spread designs, each with white space around the images, each containing a caption what indicated the line and station using the appropriate colour coding of the line. This was as much an experiment in the use of typography associated with images as it was photo presentation. This is a very graphical book and I have to say, my best work to date.
The other book was an extension of my Landscape "Transient Light" assignment:
In this case every page was identical, each containing a single image in a 2x1 aspect ratio against a white background. The design challenge here was essentially down to photo selection and ensuring that the opposing images did not clash. This book also contained a DVD with the images set to music. I found some disk envelopes with adhesive backing which enabled me to include them within the book.
Looking back, it is clear that for a two page spread to work there must be visual consistency, it is not really an issue of how many photos, but how they balance together and with the page format. So far in the design of my fest books I have utilized two very distinct designs, but only two. Each book was created with a single page design:
In the first book I used full bleed on every page, only leaving a blank page to signify chapter beginnings. The photos were sequenced into a narrative order that stepped from the joyful start to the fest to the drunken distressing end that many attendees come to. I paid more attention to the narrative sequence than the visual one. The three examples above illustrate the problem this created for the viewer. There is simply no space to breath, the images violently collide. In the physical book this is less of a problem, but is still challenging. There were also too many images, in the above spreads there is redundancy of message. The third spread shows that opposing full bleed can work, the symmetry of the images and the similar colour palette work together. In the first two cases, the simply inclusion of some white space might make the pages work.
My intent from the start was to present the confusion and visual violence of the fest, I succeeded, but too much. In the second book I went in the opposite direction, think in terms of an art presentation, one photo to every spread and plenty of white space:
Addition of a caption and image number was intended to balance the use of space on the page and to experiment with the use of text. Captions are dangerous things, they coalesce the meaning of an image, adding context, but taking away interpretation. Once I add a caption I take control of the image and direct the reading, without the caption the viewer is free to read the image within their own context, not mine. This is a strategy that can be used particularly in documentary photography where the publisher wishes to make a very specific statement and remove ambiguity. In my work that is not really needed, the caption robs the image of some of it's mystery. I will not do this for book 3, although I am glad I did for book 2 as it helped me to learn this important lesson.
Well that is my retrospective on book design. The salient point is that this is not a simple problem to solve, a books layout has huge impact on how photographs are read, get it wrong and no matter the quality of the images, they are lost in the confusion of the book. For my current project I need to find a balance, I need to convey the chaos of the fest, but not in a chaotic fashion. Conversely I do not want to present these photographs as individual art works as I did with the second volume, one or two maybe, the one illustrated here, certainly. I need to mix up the pages, but design the page around the photograph and what I am trying to say. I am reluctant to put more than 1 photograph on a page, although never say never. I have a series of images created as icons, which might work in a two page spread that shows 32 images! Much to think about.
Finally, once again, I am very much in debt to my fellow students in this project, their feedback is a key element in how I am developing this project. having a group of people who are prepared to spend their time reviewing my work is both humbling and inspiring. Thanks to all!
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