This week’s lessons revolved around publications and the various forms they might take with our work.  We were tasked with creating a dummy book that I discussed and posted in my previous post.  In my webinar with my tutor Michelle Sank, discussed the need for more thoughtful and perhaps non-traditional graphic design and provided me with some references to research.  I was aware that given the limited time and the fact I started with the idea of doing a Zine exhibition guide and along the way morphed it into more of concept for a three part book that it lacked the necessary attention to graphic design.  When it comes time to do a full blown book for my project I will have to seriously consider using a good graphic designer as it is an area in which I have limited experience.

Michelle asked to see a few of the photos of my most recent work in a larger size.  I am continually amazed at how differently she sees photographs and how quickly she is able to identify elements to remove or crops that make the photo have stronger impact.  I am a bit stuck in what I know, not because I want to be there or am uncomfortable elsewhere, but rather I am still finding my way through the labyrinth of photographic practice en route to discovering my own unique voice.  Michelle was encouraging and felt she has seen a definitive shift forward in my recent work and I have been experimenting with both different techniques i my macro work and different moods in my my post processing.  Some of the specific ideas she gave me about photos were almost startling to me and turned what I thought was the main focus of the photo on its head by telling me they were to predictable and in Flusser’s vernacular “familiar and redundant.”  I made the changes she suggested re-cropping and or removing elements from the photographs.  I have to admit those changes did indeed change the feeling and impact.  I need to find a way to see more photobooks and acquire in my own mind what is familiar in the genres in which I work.  How can my photos, again in Flusser’s words, become “informative, improbable images that have not been seen before?”  I’ve work yet to do, but the journey is begun and I am moving forward.

Flusser, V. (1983). Towards a philosophy of photography. English. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0031-9406(10)62747-2