I am thinking about making my semester-long photobook based on the theme of “essential gestures.” I was inspired by a statement Mary Frank made in the book, Originals, by Eleanor Munro. Frank said, “I love the gesture of work, watching someone do work they do well or with experience, with certain essential gestures, nothing wasted.” I want to focus this semester on what I perceive “essential gestures” to be. What is essential and what is waste? I am not going to limit my subject matter to people. I will take pictures of anything I feel reflects necessity or essence. I may want to shoot a series images of someone performing a specific task. If I do this, it would be interesting to take video and convert it into stills and make them into a book, in sequence. I may, however, feel it is better to make the book a collection of 30+ totally different essential moments. I am leaning toward the latter honestly, because I feel it will be more interesting for the viewer and it will leave more to the imagination for me.
Right now I think it is important to leave my theme very broad so that I have some room to play around. I do not know yet whether I will want to incorporate Xeroxes, collage, or my own drawings yet. All of this will determine how I want the final product to look and read.
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The Photobook
ReplyDeleteRevised Semester-Long Project Proposal
Sarah Kramer
I still intend to use the quote by Mary Frank and create a photobook about “essential gestures” and “nothing wasted,” but I believe I have solidified my idea considerably. Ideally I see the quote being in the beginning and being the only text within the book, though I have not yet decided how I feel about a title.
My photos will be derived from a video clip of someone doing something for which he or she is particularly skilled. I am not sure who it will be or what they will be doing, but I want it to yield interesting photographs. The person coming to mind at the moment is my younger brother who has an amazing talent for playing piano and has been an ongoing inspiration for my own art. The problem, however, is that although this would be immensely meaningful to me, I do not want to sacrifice the visual interest of the photos for the viewer. The photographs need to keep the viewer moving through the book. I want them to be recognizable enough that the viewer understands they are of a sequence, but enigmatic enough or beautiful enough to ensure that the viewer will look at them until the end. I would prefer to think of someone I know who does something that would yield a visible end result, that way there would be more of a progression evident in the images.
This preference for a trade besides music, which leads to a visible product, is also important because of another formal decision I have made. I want the images to rotate their way through the book. When you open the book the image on the left will be right-side-up, but the image on the right side will be rotated counter clock-wise so you need to turn the book to view it right-side-up. When you turn the page, neither of the images will be right-side-up because the viewer is meant to rotate the entire book to view the images (so the book is now up-side-down). The whole time you are looking at the book, you will need to rotate the book clock-wise. At first it might be difficult to get the hang of, but eventually the viewer will develop what I picture to be a waltz-like rhythm. This formal reference to clocks and developing a rhythm is very important metaphorically for my concept. I do not, however, want to overwhelm the sense of music in the book because that is not my point. I want the viewer to understand that there is a rhythm that develops when you get good at something that eliminates all the wasted movement. That is not limited to musical endeavors.
In order to convince viewers to rotate the book in this manner instead of try viewing the images from the up-side-down or sideways perspectives I will need a motivator I think. This is where the shape of the book comes in. I am going to give it a vertical orientation, which when opened will become a square. This way, the photos will not be centered on the page, but rather set low on the page. I think that when the viewer turns the page and finds the images are far up at the top and not facing them, it will trigger them to rotate the book. If this isn’t enough, I might also find that some sort of underlining or—as a last resort—even interjection of text is necessary. The only way to work out these issues is to make sure I get some drafts of the project made up early so I can observe how people interact with them.
Now that I have been making three different versions of my spreads, I am realizing some of the difficulties of my book and how to possibly resolve them. I knew I was going to have an issue getting the viewers to realize they are meant to turn the book upside down when they turn to pages 3 and 4, but I didn't even think about the fact that when they get toward the middle of the book, they may get confused and end up working their way back to the beginning of the book instead of to the end.
ReplyDeleteWait...now that I think about it, that could be kindda cool. That would reinforce the concept of essential gestures and getting good at something! Ok, so that's not so much an issue. But to aid people a little more through this process, I will probably incorporate text. I am thinking about including 1, 2, 3...1, 2, 3 in the beginning to reinforce the waltz-like feel of the book (picture, picture, turn). Eventually the numbers will change to words and the words to a mantra. If when I do this it still doesn't seem that people will understand what to do with the book, I can always resort to including page numbers.
To add interest to my book I think I will start out very basic but become increasingly complex. In the beginning, I will have a picture righ-side up, then a picture turned on it's side, and on the next spread a picture turned on its side and a picture upside down(which would be viewed the same as the first spread when rotated). As the book progresses, I will have the images become larger and more distorted so as to bring about a more disorienting, abstracted, and dream-like experience. This will test whether or not they have mastered the rhythm of the book.