Zemni Images

Photography, moving image, design and illustration of Linda Mayoux

Comics and Sequential Narrative

Category: Inspiration

  • Comics and Sequential Narrative

    Sequential illustration responds to narrative through a sequence of images, visualising it over time through cartoon strips and graphic novels, storyboards and animations. Although writing may exist within cartoons, the images are more dominant.Visually, sequential illustrations make use of the idea of the frame and camera lens and construct the story by careful use of different types of edits.
    Will Eisner ‘Theory of Comics and Sequential Art’ downloadable pdf

    Types of narrative

    Simple narratives have a beginning, middle and end: the protagonist has a problem at the start, encounters conflict through the middle and reaches resolution at the end….What makes the story complex, wonderful, entertaining or tragic are the details of the characters, the setting, the plot of the narrative and the genre in which it’s set. ‘ Course text p87.

    In some cases genre codes and conventions may provide the reader/viewer with some certainty as to what they’re about to experience. On the other hand, genres may be deliberately mixed to spice things up.

    Framing and storyboards

    All forms of sequential illustration use the idea of the frame or panel in some way to move the narrative along. This uses visual language from film and TV – varying close-ups, mid or long shots of what’s going on. Like film, distinct grammars may be used in different genres.

    Action:Sequential illustrations, unlike moving image or animation, have to represent movement and action via the static medium of drawing. Action has to be implied. This is often done through association, showing people mid-walk, cars moving, actions taking place, but it can also be
    done through careful use of editing, jump cutting from scene to scene.

    Sounds: Like actions, sounds have to be implied in sequential illustrations. Speech bubbles do the job of conveying the spoken word in a number of different ways, but actual sounds are often represented onomatopoeically, or as they sound. These KAPOWs, BRRRRRMs and WHOOOOSHs are further enhanced through the use of visual typography, creating fractured words, letters falling downwards or bursting out, anything that helps bring that sound to life.

    Narrative research

    Cartoon strip

    Cartoon strips are perhaps the simplest form of sequential illustration. They may be said to originate in the stone carving narratives of many ancient civilisations. Early Renaissance examples had narratives running across panels.

    Very simple cartoons may consist of just 3 frames using a very tight narrative of simple beginning, middle, end. Other cartoons are longer with more space to develop the story, either with more panels or a continuous story over several episodes.

    Comic books

    The comic book extends the cartoon strip into a publication, with longer pieces and more specific content. Fashions come and go and they vary in their drawing complexity. Comics include:

    • Weekly and annual comics for children and ‘would-still-be’ children: DC and Marvel comics of the 40s and 50s, The Beano, Dan Dare
    • Japanese Manga
    • 1960s counterculture with artists like Robert Crumb
    • 1970s punk with artists like Gary Painter
    • 1980s Viz comics for adults
    Graphic novels

    In the graphic novel, the basic form of the cartoon is extended to cover longer narratives. Often graphic novelists focus on more complex forms of narrative and, as the term ‘novel’ suggests,see themselves more as a part of the world of literature than comics. Graphic novels can be created by an illustrator-author or be a collaboration between an illustrator and an author.

    Storyboards

    The image remains free of any speech bubbles, descriptions or sounds; instead,this information is presented at the bottom of each frame, with additional information on the type of edit being used and how long for. Storyboards are more functional than other forms of sequential illustration; they’re a form of visual idea development specifically for the moving image.

    Research:Pick some examples of comic book, cartoon and graphic novel artists:

    • What’s the relationship between the narrative and the style of drawing being used?
    • Which is most important in making the story work?

    Graphic novels: Dave McKean

    Graphic novels:Shaun Tan

    Comics: Chris Ware

    Comics

    Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward from my Printmaking blog

    The Photo Essay

    • A simple series: each image has something unique, unifying quality that makes the viewer want to see more. Eg Kate Kirkwood Cow Spines.
    • Highlight photo essays: journalistic and centres on an interesting event. Focus on key characters and stages that may or may not be in linear sequence. EgThe Year of the Horse
    • Time-sequence photo essays: a series of events or a process
    • Location photo essays: can be thematic or linear
    • Idea photo essays: a series of photos around a more abstract idea. This is more difficult to sequence.

    What is the concept?

    write this in one sentence.

    • portrait series
    • linear sequence
    • First edits: narrow down to 100 shots. It is more important that these should work in the context of your essay rather than being the best images. Print these out and experiment with different sequences.
    • Second edit: 20 images. Again experiment with different sequencing.
    • Final edit 10-15. Be ruthless, make sure you are aware of the implications of each image and do not duplicate information.

    Creating a series

    • lead photo: needs to be a strong image in terms of composition because it is the shot that will ‘sell the story’ and draw the reader in.
    • scene-setting shot: shows where the story is and the main characters and other core elements.
    • sequential shots: form the main core of the story. These do not necessarily have to be in time sequence.
    • portrait shots: portraits of individuals and groups important to the story – mix of posed and candid shots. Or environmental shots.
    • panoramic shots: with context shots stitched together
    • interactive shots: include incidental information and broadens the understanding of the story.
    • detail shots: close-up shots that help to round things out and add drama.
    • summing up shot: pulls things together and shows the final result. Not necessarily the most important shot, but it needs to be clear.
    • concluding shot: an image that says definitively ‘the end’.

    Narrative structure Gustav Freytag (1816-1895)

    • Exposition – shows us who the main characters are, something about their lives. Shows the main character and their goal within the story. There is then an inciting incident that causes conflict .
    • Rising action: is a build up of events as the main character moves towards their goal. Conflict occurs when there is a disagreement with one or more people.
    • Climax: the crunch point
    • Falling Action:
    • Resolution: happy or sad ending. Gives a feeling that this is the end, all strands have been drawn together and everything that needs to be explained has been explained.

    Adding text

    Not to tell a story but to give some facts. May be image titles single words, captions or short narrative at the beginning and/or end.

    randall munroe xkcd

  • Tom Phillips a humument

    Philips isolated phrases or parts of words in the book and then combined them with painted and collaged elements to form a new narrative.
    Started in 1966 and worked on in various stages till theventire book was filled.

    See http://humument.com

  • Time-based audio-visual presentations

    Like books, slideshows have a very ‘linear’ narrative, even more so than the photobook. The creator is in control of the order in which viewers see images and therefore has greater control over the meanings generated.

    Victorian ‘magic lantern’ shows –  idea of projecting a photographic image onto a surface for a temporary duration rather than creating a hard copy to be exhibited

    1960s, 70s and 80s  slideshow screenings at amateur international competitive events. Specialist equipment was developed, whereby two slide projectors would be automated (in terms of duration and opacity of each slide) whilst also playing a stereo soundtrack, all controlled by a domestic cassette tape.

    Automated displays of photographs as for example web galleries are now very common. Slideshow galleries on WordPress and SmugMug, the Slideshow module in Lightroom and iPhoto, as well as Windows consumer software, make it easy to compile this type of automated slideshow quickly and easily. But these are limited – the main control being over the images themselves: which images are show in which order, manipulation of each image to vary the effect of eg colour, viewpoint and crop, sequencing to vary these effects in a meaningful way, and the content and style of any titles and text to reinforce or challenge the meaning in the image. Some software like lightroom Slideshow module allows narration, sound and/or music and mixing of photos with video.

    More considered audio-visual presentations can be both works of art in themselves, and/or more effective as a means of promoting still images. Here the creator takes more control of the relative timing of viewing of each image – some take longer and some less time. There are also different types of transition. Effects can be superimposed to change the image – zooming and panning, changing colour and focus as each image is viewed, multiple images shown at the same time.

    Software used include:

    • Adobe Photoshop
    • Adobe Premiere
    • Adobe Animate
    • Adobe After Effects

    This means that substantial numbers of images can be combined – some similar and some contrasting to enhance a narrative.

    The boundary between video and still photography is becoming increasingly blurred. As high definition video is becoming a standard feature of both consumer and professional DSLRs, and shooting video is becoming more intuitive to digital photographers, it is likely that clients will start to expect photographers to offer video as well as still images.

    YouTube and Vimeo are two places where video content and slideshows saved in a video format (.mov or .mp4) can be self-published.

    Examples

    • Urbex: Beauty in Decay
    • Chris Leslie: slideshows of ‘Disappearing Glasgow’ with photos, background music and interviews. I find these very evocative as a social documentary portrait. These are in a linked series on vimeo – start with  https://vimeo.com/29799259
    • Xavier Ribas  ‘Concrete Geographies’.  Photos of concrete blocks in Barcelona. See his website: http://www.xavierribas.com. This has inside views and links to vimeos of other books like Sanctuary – no text, one photo per spread. Sometimes a cross-over image. But the onscreen resolution is not good enough to really see the images.
    • Alessandro Rota A Neocolonialist’s diary.  Small paisley pattern cover. Coloured photos of sheets in Lusaka. Dark night streets. Lights. See his website . And vimeo of the book. https://vimeo.com/28099164
    • Foto8 Magazine has many powerful photo-only documentary stories with music.

    More video-based:

    • Magnum in Motion and the subscription-based Mediastorm have powerful documentaries that mix video (often slow-motion and photo-like) and animated or still photos with narrative voice over.
    • 1 in 8 Million (New York Times) has a video gallery with video/photo mixes linked to videos with personal stories of varied New Yorkers.
    • Duckrabbit does training as well as producing documentaries blending moving as well as still images.

    Less effective I thought were:

    For links to my own work so far see: Create a slideshow. But this needs more work – when I have less work and risk of RSI.

    Audio-visual pieces – some points to consider

    (adapted from Course Guide)

    Some of the design tips for photobooks, most notably rhythm and sequencing, are equally relevant here.

    • Rationale: What is the purpose of the slideshow? What is the main concept? Who is it for? Why do you want to present your work in a slideshow? Is a slideshow the most appropriate treatment of the work? If there’s a lot of content within the frame, will the viewer have enough time to ‘read’ the image at the given pixel dimensions?
    • Selection and Editing: Edit your work strictly.  Do all the images sit comfortably next to each other. Do any seem out of place? Can this be resolved, or should they be omitted? How long will your slideshow be? If it’s intended solely for on-line use, then it will probably need to be shorter than a piece that will be shown on a loop in a gallery.
    • Sequencing: Sequencing is paramount: consider how certain images relate to each other (graphically as well as in terms of the ‘connotations’ of an image, or the juxtaposition of images within the sequence).
    • Text: Will you use text? What will you say? Will the text complement and reinforce the images, or challenge the viewer through contrast or contradiction?What typeface and style will you use?
    • Sound: Consider the relationship between the sound and your images? Have you got relevant audio and/or textual material to accompany the images? If not, what could you look for?  Adobe Audition and Sony’s Acid Music are quite easy to use giving music loops to combine and layer to compose your own simple music tracks. Websites such as http://freemusicarchive.org  offer copyright-free audio tracks for non-commercial use.

  • Land Art

    ‘Land art’  is a conceptually-based approach approach to making art that emerged in the 1970s. The nature of earth and land art requires the media of film and photography to document outcomes and incorporates aspects of performance art and sculpture.

    Land Art: The focus is not on describing the place itself, but representing the artist’s experience of visiting or travelling to or through it.

    • Hamish Fulton
    • Richard Long
    • Christo wrapping’ works
    • Jeanne-Claude wrapping’ works

    Earth art: involves direct intervention with, and often use of, the raw materials of a landscape (e.g. rocks, plants, mud), and is generally made or presented in situ. In Malcolm Andrews’ words:

    “The work of the Earth Artists cannot easily be identified with this or that particular object which the hands of the artist have made, but more with the relationship between that object (sometimes a mere rearrangement of on-site stones, for instance, or a line drawn on the desert floor) and the otherwise untouched site. The ‘landscape art’ in this case is that relationship.” (Andrews, 1999, p. 204 q Alexander 2013 p71)

    Robert Smithson (1938–73), celebrated for his Spiral Jetty (1970) which is almost 0.5km in length and extends into the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

    In relation to photography this raises the possibilities of manipulating the scene – going beyond simply tidying up strands of grass or intruding branches to constructing images to photograph – along the lines of Mohammad Barouissa’s constructed scenarios of conflict based on research and then staged. One could envisage something similar for eg environmental issues, or simply aesthetic effect.

    A further element used by some land artists, and also painters like Kurt Jackson, are words added to images – might be handwritten or typed in an appropriate font and overlaid in Photoshop. Or simply titling and putting alongside the image as a meta-narrative. This could complement or give ironic contrast to the image.

    Project 2.5: Text in art

  • The Road

    The road has featured prominently in art and literature as a means to get characters from one place to another, and as a stage for narratives to be played out. It has been used as a symbol for:

    • notion of a journey – attaining greater understanding and with a coming of age, as explored in The Road to Perdition (2002) directed by Sam Mendes, for example.
    • symbol of liberation and  means of exploration and adventure, by permitting its users to travel freely from place to place, as in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957) or Laurie Lee’s As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969). Endless ‘road movies’ have perpetuated the ideology of America as a unified place of opportunity and escape.
    • unfamiliar –  change of pace (for instance by walking instead of driving) brings out a sense of the unheimliche; something very familiar by one means of transport can feel alien when experienced by another.  Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006);  Chris Coekin’s photographic project The Hitcher.
    •  environmental damage and climate change – particularly with cars. Lee Friedlander monograph America by Car (2010)
    • cultural exploration American Photographs (1938) by Walker Evans (1903–75) and Les Américains (1958) by Robert Frank; Paul Graham A1 – The Great North Road ; Chris Coekin’s monograph The Hitcher (2007)

    Rivers have also been used to define routes to structure photographic exploration.

     2.2 Explore a Road

  • Jacob Riis

    Danish-born Jacob Riis (1849–1914) was a pioneer in social documentary photography which included identifiable people and was one of the first photographers to use the new technology of magnesium flash. Riis photographed the flop houses where people were stacked at night
    on every available horizontal space. Again these were usually immigrants and Riis showed the squalor they inhabited in his book How the Other Half Lives (1890) which featured the infamous Mulberry tenements in New York.

    For a New York Times (2008) article on Riis visit:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/opinion/12tue4.html?th&emc=th

    Watch a 10-minute film clip about Riis and his use of the new magnesium flash:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EACoIbokOcc

  • Shirley Baker

    Images on Mary  Evans Picture Library

    Google Images

    Shirley Baker, (1932-2014), was one of the rare female photographers who chronicled life in the north of England from the 1950s onwards. Her street photography was in the ‘flaneuse’ tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, whom she named as influences. Unposed snapshots of people going about their business were juxtaposed with telling graffiti. She had a great eye for composition that has been under-appreciated next to her compassionate documentation and concern for social injustice, with a particular focus on women and children.

    From the 60s, Baker taught photography at Salford College of Art and would always carry her camera modestly stowed in her handbag. In free periods, she began a body of work, spanning 15 years, of the social housing in the area that was being demolished as people lived in semi-derelict slums. Shirley’s work in Salford and Manchester (shot mainly between 1960 and 1973) captured a time of rapid social and economic change in the lives of working class people in Manchester and Salford.”It was a time of much change: people were turfed out of their homes and some squatted in old buildings, trying to hang on to the traditional life they knew.”

    Slum clearances, started in the 1930s, resumed in earnest in the 1950s, and in the twenty years between 1955 and 1975, around 1.3 million homes were demolished nationwide. When Shirley Baker began photographing the streets of her native Salford, it seemed that no-one was interested in recording the human story of these soon-to-be demolished communities. Old ladies sitting on doorsteps in a row of condemned houses, men with handcarts searching for refuse to be recycled, children playing inventively among rubble and abandoned cars. That she chose to preserve these moments on film, now seems like the only perceptive response to a vanishing environment. It was not until 1989 that her first book, Street Photographs: Manchester and Salford, was published and Baker began to be more widely appreciated.

    In addition to her work in Manchester and Salford, she spent a considerable amount of time capturing Camden Market at the height of punk. Her work was often humorous and she added over the years to collections such as owners who look like their dogs and people falling asleep in public.

    Remembering the work of Shirley Baker Phil Coomes  BBC

    Life

    (from Guardian Obituary)

    Born in Salford, to Alec, a furniture maker, and Josephine, a housewife, Shirley had an identical twin, Barbara, who would also become an artist. They both went as boarders to Penrhos College, in Colwyn Bay, from where during the second world war they were evacuated to Chatsworth House, in Derbyshire. Their parents were unfazed by their daughters pursuing the arts professionally after they left school.

    Baker married Tony Levy, a GP, in 1957, and the couple eventually settled in Wilmslow, Cheshire, where their daughter, Nan, was born in 1963. Baker never displayed any of her photographs around their home, although she did like to take pictures of the family. This perhaps summed up the private, almost secretive, nature of her work.

    When Baker studied  photography at Manchester College of Technology, there was only one other woman on the course. On finishing, Baker’s plan was to work in-house at a company, recording processes and producing promotional images. She started at Courtaulds fabric manufacturers before freelancing for other businesses and doing some journalism, including for the Guardian. Baker encountered difficulties getting a press card, so was unable to pursue photojournalism seriously, and believed she was only given the assignments deemed unsuitable for men. From the 60s, Baker taught photography at Salford College of Art.

    Baker kept photographing in later life and completed an MA in critical history and the theory of photography at the University of Derby in 1995. She joined the Mary Evans Picture Library in 2008, and in 2012 had solo shows in Oldham and Salford, with another planned for 2015 at the Photoraphers’ Gallery in London. She was always pleased when people who featured in her work came along to exhibitions. At the opening of the Lowry Gallery in 2000, the Queen not only viewed Baker’s photographs but met some of Baker’s subjects, too.

     

     

  • Documentary typologies for Eugenics

    Documentary typologies for Eugenics

    There was widespread interest in eugenics in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. Eugenics is based on the idea that some characteristics are ‘better’ than others and that you can improve the human gene pool by encouraging reproduction between people with desirable genetic traits and discouraging reproduction amongst those with less desirable traits. Clearly the belief that some groups were inherently genetically inferior could be used as a justification for all kinds of behaviour, from colonial rule to modern day racism.

    Scientific Racism: The Eugenics of Social Darwinism.  one-hour BBC4 documentary

    Implicit in eugenics was the idea of classification or objective measuring – pigeon-holing people into particular groups according to their genetic characteristics and treating them accordingly. The Victorians, for example, believed that you could identify criminal ‘types’ through their facial characteristics.

    Photography was adopted as a useful tool to facilitate classification.It was manipulated and used by racists and propagandists  to endorse a ‘science’ to the public.  Such photography effectively dehumanised its subjects and turned them into research objects although its creators might have argued that it was simply documentary – showing what was there. It also served a journalistic function, publicising and legitimising racist organisations and ‘celebrities’ like Margaret Sanger.

    In America the eugenics movement was well funded and they produced plenty of indicative material.

    Francis Galton photographed immigrants as they arrived in America, often at Ellis Island. He identified 46 different races through measurement and through facial characteristics on photographs.  Charts were compiled to show what to expect visually of the Negroid Insane Criminal and the Negroid Criminal.  Margaret Sanger’s ‘Negro Project’ sought to restrict the black population, and thus improve the American population, through ‘planned parenthood’ masquerading as health care and family planning.

    For more on Malthusian eugenics and the Harlem Project,
    visit:

    The Nazis took this to the extreme by exterminating groups who failed to match the Aryan ideal – Jews, black people, homosexuals, Roma, people with learning disability – and eugenics fell into disfavour after World War II as a result.

    The Baldwin lecture and a perspective on post genome race:

    http://www.princeton.edu/president/speeches/20100309/