Reflecting on Project 02: Portraits with Words
by Jordan Grant
After opening up our completed photobook, Portraits with Words, my first thought was: Jeez, this thing is going to get dirty. While the black cover looks great, it has already accrued a solid layer of fingerprints and dust. Given a few years next to the darkroom, close to the eager hands of young photographers, I can only imagine the smudges our book will show.
All jokes aside, I made a number of observations when I first held the printed version of our book. To put some organization onto this reflection, I’ll start with my thoughts on my own section, “I Would”, and move on to the rest of the book.
To begin, I realized that my decision to place a photo of text (“I would”) on every page underestimated the memory of my readers. Initially, I inserted the text-photo into my spreads because I wanted my section of the book to have an obvious, formal parallel with the section created by my partner Jenny (whose pages contained two photos, one with a person and the text “I am not”, the other with the same person and text that answered that statement). However, when I actually saw “I would” scrawled across every page, I realized that readers might feel like I was banging them over the head with my theme. If anything, I could have removed the “I would” text from one page of each spread. Even better, I could have removed the “I would” text altogether. My title page would have been enough of an explanation for most readers; after reading “I would” once, the reader would probably assume that the photos that followed would show people giving an answer to the stated question.
More importantly, removing the text from every page would have freed me to blow my pictures up. Full bleeds, though different in style from Jenny and Rachel’s sections, would have tied my own section to Elle’s work, tightening our book as a whole. Full bleeds would have also improved my images. As they are rendered now, I feel like my photos are too small for their own good. My subjects get lost on the page; their words don’t “pop”. A larger canvas area would have helped correct these problems.
This observation leads me into my largest critique for the book as a whole. Simply put, I think our photobook reads to fast for its own good. In my own section, the relative “smallness” of my images hampers (in my mind) the readers’ inclination to stop and see the relationship between the images being presented in each spread. On a larger level, I feel our book does very little to slow down the reader’s eye. In my own browsing, for instance, I often caught myself skipping over the title pages for each section. Though I can attribute this to my own familiarity with the book, I feel that other readers, less tied to the project, would also skip over those key title pages. If those same pages had given readers a sudden jolt –say, if they were rendered black, contrasting with the rest of the book- then our photobook may have become a slower, more methodical read.
Though I’ve focused on the negative in the past few paragraphs, I really am quite happy with our group’s final work. With some caveats, I believe that we managed to sequence and integrate four very different styles of photography on both thematic and formal levels. In the end, I think we managed to create a book where our individual voices combine to make something that’s more interesting than what they were alone.
[One last aside: our group didn’t anticipate that iPhoto would insert gray pages at the beginning and end of our book. If we did it again, we would probably add in our own black or white pages, particularly on the spread that compliments Elle’s final self-portrait].
Reflection Project 2
ReplyDeleteSarah Kramer
Looking at our book in book form was an odd experience for me. I knew what each page looked like already, but it was definitely weird having the images in my hands, up close, and presented in such a way that I could not see multiple spreads at once. I did not think something so familiar could feel so unfamiliar. The book actually felt distracting to me somehow. Even my section, the one I had dealt with in all different forms, seemed wrong somehow.
I thought that if I liked how everything looked in the computer, then I would certainly love the physicality of the book. But that really was not the case. The pages bend and flop around, which is very distracting when you are used to seeing your work perfectly flat. Also, as I have said, the book format does not allow you to see more than one spread at once. I knew this, obviously, but when lining up the printed pages on a desk, or in I-photo you cannot help but see all of the spreads together at least for a little while. It was not until I saw the actual book that I realized just how attached I had obviously become to seeing all of the images together. The transition between computer and book is obviously one which I will need to adjust to. As dumb as it sounds, the difference was a little surprising and for that reason, alone, a little disappointing.
The experience was bothersome also because it really declared our very disparate sections one thing. They just do not feel like one thing. That is no one’s fault, and everyone’s fault. Our major problem, as Jen pointed out, is that our concept was far too broad. For such a broad topic, we really should have set some formal parameters from the start, such as every one works in black and white or everyone should have text on every spread. Because we did not want to impede on each other’s creativity any more than we had to, we let everyone generate their own ideas and execute them in their own ways. We were all working at different computers in different places, and we ended up with very different sections very quickly. When we finally did begin to share what we had, no one was completely comfortable with changing their concept or encouraging others to do so.
Such are the difficulties of group work. It is very hard to give and take criticism when you must work so cooperatively with others. As I have said before, the topic was just too broad. If we had chosen a more specific idea to focus on, I feel we would have inevitably ended up with more consistency. It also would have helped if we set some deadlines for the group so that we could have checked in with each other and critiqued the book as a whole before the class critiques. That way, everyone may have been more on the same page. Perhaps, too, we would have worked out some of our technical issues. I feel that everyone was at a different stage in the process the whole time. We were all seeing other group members’ spreads at different times, thus we could not give and receive as thorough and effective feedback as we might have had we sat down as a group to consider the work as a whole. Some members were straggling behind while the others were so far ahead it was difficult to propose alterations. In sum, I feel that all of the issues present in our book could have been resolved with better communication, set deadlines, a more specific topic, group critiques, and perhaps even some stylistic specifications.
After looking through all four of the books I realized that the work and color was much better represented in book form then in power point. But the covers were very dirty and it was actually a bit distracting. After looking through the book ‘What it’s like’ it is much easier to see the hard work that went into the four different sections, where as it was harder to see that while stile one the screen. Also I think that all the colors work together very nicely and didn’t get to dark or of shade of what was planned.
ReplyDeleteAs for spreads that are my favorite or I think are the best I would say that the first spread with the pregnant picture and heart book are the best. The two pages go together wonderfully and each picture on the separate page matches well while being different. Second I really like the third spread with the black and green page I feel like they go together wonderfully while at the same time expressing the intensity of each very distinctive thought. Also the final page with all the different fonts, size, and font color really shows the different voices of many different people and all that they had experienced that others may not have.
A few of the things I would change on my spreads is the third page the girl is staring at the telephone…I am not overall happy with that picture but it was difficult to find a photo that would involve the lyrics. I would prefer to have had some more time after talking with Colby to pick a better option or figure something out for that particular spread. Also I see how the multiply different fonts could be distracting and even overwhelming but at the same time looking back at the other font options I don’t think with such a emotional stanza I could have had just one font. Although two or three would have done fine to cover the emotional roller costar that is this stanza rather than six or seven. Other than that I feel I did a good job executing this section of the lyrics. And after looking through the book as a whole it looks good.
Monica Frantz
ReplyDeleteLooking at the book is definitely a different experience than viewing the images on a computer. I love having the tangibility of the book—being able to flip pages and turn the book and hold it. I was really happy with the way the cover turned out and the dividing pages. I think that the way the dividing pages turned out it doesn’t seem so much like a statement—“Slow Down Megan Kelly” or “Dead End Monica Frantz.”
The black page inserted before the final spread of group photos also provides a nice visual pause. And it makes it seem less as though the group photos are the last pages of my section.
The map at the beginning of the book was especially effective. I was worried that the image from Google Maps wouldn’t blend into the rest of the book, but I think that it was a productive statement, asserting the purpose behind our book, the root concept at work. Though we could have been more heavy-handed about our concept, I appreciated the presence of suggestion alone. The images mirror each other enough to provide a dialogue between sections. I’m really happy we chose to shoot as a group rather than separately. This way our lighting and locations were the most similar, and upon occasion, we are in each other’s images.
I also worried that Bart’s black and white images would stand out from the other three sections, but because we placed them first, I think it worked. His images set a tone of timelessness, but did not set a tone of “black and white.” The change to Megan’s images was smooth and yet, both sections remained distinct. I think this is one of my favorite qualities: Our images are often of the same things or in similar styles, but each sections stands on its own two feet while participating in the larger conversation of the book. I think that was a hard balance to achieve.
I didn’t really like the gray pages that were inserted into the front and back of the book. I didn’t expect them and they were a bit distracting. White would have been better. Such a textured, matte surface was an odd beginning and end to the book.
The biggest complaint I have is that the colors of the ink didn’t seem quite so brilliant in the book as they did on the computer screen. It was most noticeable in my picture of the wires against the blue sky; it seemed dull and bland. Most of my other images turned out alright though.