Zemni Images

Linda Mayoux Notes for Creative Activism

Photobooks: design and publishing

Tag: photobook

  • Photobooks: design and publishing

    Print-on-demand and self-publishing

    The expansion on print-on-demand services now makes self-publishing fairly straightforward. These enable direct sales through companies like Amazon at price mark-ups decided by the photographer. There are a number of services on offer that I looked at:

    Review of options: https://www.cnet.com/news/best-and-worst-photo-book-making-websites-for-you/

    But the one I chose – it is UK-based and offers the most flexibility together with full integration with Adobe CC Lightroom and InDesign is

    This was very competitive on pricing with frequent price reduction deals once you are signed up. Shipping from Netherlands keeps postal costs reasonably low (will Brexit add taxes????) – though it is still more cost-effective to wait and order multiple publications. Blurb has teamed up with Adobe to enable easy compilation of books using plug-ins for Lightroom and InDesign. Blurb has its own software, but this offers less flexibility to edit images as they have to be sized, cropped and processed before they are laid out. The greatest flexibility for editing of the images is given in Lightroom. InDesign allows for much more sophisticated layouts of tiff images that can then be edited in Photoshop.

    However the choice of book format and size, and paper stock is still limited compared to professional book publishing services.

    Professional bookbinders

    Bookbinding is a very specialist craft. Professional bookbinders can offer a range of quality services: mixing paper stocks, customised endpapers, gatefold pages and matching slipcases and boxes. A professional bookbinder can offer advice on materials and other design aspects, such as how easy it will be to physically open your book with your particular choice of paper, and how far your image needs to be printed from the gutter to be viewed properly, for example.

    For an overview of different types of binding see

    http://design.zemniimages.info/4-materials-and-process/binding/  (to be fully developed)

    Book design issues

    Some points to consider when designing or evaluating

    • Rationale: What is the purpose of the book? What is the main concept? Who is it for? Why do you want to present your work in a book? Is the book format really the most suitable medium in which to present your work? A badly printed or poorly designed book of your photographs will not be as well received as a simpler portfolio of good quality prints.
    • Selection and Editing: Edit your work strictly before even considering the layout.  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?
    • 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?
    • Typeface What typeface and style will you use? Pay as much attention to the words and their layout as you do to your photographs. Your choice of typeface communicates a lot about how you want your photographs to be read.

    Book Module in Lightroom

    Webinar from Blurb

    Using InDesign series of videos

    Adobe InDesign gives much more control over layout and also links to Blurb, or can be exported to pdf for other Print on Demand services.

    For more discussion see my Book Design blog (to be completed by May 2017):

    http://design.zemniimages.info/principles-and-process/typography/

    http://design.zemniimages.info/principles-and-process/images/

  • Photobooks: Inspiration

    Types of Photobook

    Surveys and catalogues
    • catalogues for exhibitions
    • ‘Survey’ publications draw together a collection of individual images or a group of practitioners working in a similar area. Some surveys seem more didactic or directed at the art market, such as 50 Photographers You Should Know (2008), Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography (2009), reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow (2005) and reGeneration 2: Tomorrow’s Photographers Today (2010).
    Monographs and artists’ books Monographs are mass-produced (relatively speaking), but often they are the primary context for the photographic work. A monograph published to coincide with an exhibition of an artist’s work may  draw together several different bodies of work, but it will be devoted to one practitioner alone. An artist’s book may be produced in editions, but is generally more individual in terms of its design, the materials used and the printing technique or finish. Some may be printed, stencilled, stitched and embossed by the maker themselves. Others will be a collaboration with a professional bookbinder and a graphic designer. Early photobooks Many of these were topographic images for travel and tourism.
    • Francis Frith photographs from travels to Middle and Far East
    • John Thomson photographs from travels to Middle and Far East
    • Maxime Du Camp (1822–94)
    • Auguste Salzmann (1824–72)
    • Josiah Dwight Whitney (1819–96) published The Yosemite Book in 1868.
    Some developed more innovative design
    • Soviet and Fascist propaganda books with novel design features, such as fold-out pages that extend the dimensions of an image

    Inspiration

    I have a large collection, but not had time to look through or properly review apart from getting some layout ideas.

    Colour

    • Martin Parr: documentary photographer. Some of his works have been mass produced and re-printed (e.g. The Last Resort, 1986 and 1998); others have been limited editions or even more exclusive artist’s books such as Cherry Blossom Time in Tokyo, 2001. See: www.martinparr.com/books/. Layout in Last Resort has one, or very occasionally two, large images per spread, with white margin around and no border. This focuses attention on the content of the socially complex saturated colour images. There is a short introductory text at the beginning.
    • Paul Seawright : Invisible Cities a very large hardback book of colour images. Some images are full bleed crossing the whole spread, sometimes with some space to one side or top/bottom. Other spreads have only one half page image generally placed full bleed to one corner with the rest of the spread as white space. There is a text introduction to African cities at the beginning.
    • Urbex ‘Beauty in Decay’ this has beautiful limited palette images . The book is divided into chapters with some introductory text. But the book is mostly large images with  whitespace. Some images and spreads are on black background. A few text passages are on beige background. Some have black or white boders and vignettes to increase contrast.

    Black and white

    • Daido Moriyama  Tales of Tono – small portrait format book of very high contrast black and white images. Full bleed in landscape across a double spread on black background. This makes the abstract flashes of white shapes in the often barely readable images standout. Text is reserved for a narrative section at the end. I like the moodiness of this book and all the images demand close attention in themselves, as well as producing an overall edgy impression as a apparently random narrative.
    • Algirdas Seskus ‘Love Lyrics’ Lithuanian 149 contrasty documentary Black and White images in landscape format. No text except the number of each photo and date. One or two large images per spread. No border with generous white margin.
    • Arunas Baltenas  Vilnius  2007 images from 1987. Small misty sepia images one per spread with no border and lots of white space. Delicate handwritten titles and date. One page introduction in English and Lithuanian at the beginning. No other text. I find the delicate nostalgia of this book really beautiful.
    • Henri Cartier Bresson in India  Thames and Hudson. 1987 with forward by Bengali film director Satyajit Ray. One large black and white photo per page with short caption. Black border on white paper. Occasionally one large and one small. The images themselves are quite low contrast. The black border makes the eye focus inwards.
    At the Brighton Photography Biennial I saw a lot of interesting innovative designs, but did not have time to note all the details.
    • David Galjaard Concresco. A book about Albania. Has a brown opening cover with short explanatory text. Then  double page spreads with small white text insert pages. For this and other work see his website: http://www.davidgaljaard.nl
    • Dara McGrath ‘Deconstructing the Maze’  This has two coloured photographs on one side and page of text on the other. The strength here is in the photos. For this and other work see his website http://www.daramcgrath.com/index.html
    • 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
    • Irene Siragusa ‘Six weeks in Dublin’.   Lots of photos of spattered blood. Small juxtaposed rectangular images. website
    Unknown author/title glimpsed over other peoples’ shoulders:
    • Book with glued images folded.
    • Aids (author???).  Small and simple brown cover. Photos of slits one on a page opposite a blank page.

     Sources and overviews

    • The Photobook: A History, Volumes I,  ll and III Gerry Badger and Martin Parr
    • The Chinese Photobook: Martin Parr and Wassink Lundgren from the Photographer’s Gallery exhibition
    • Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s Ryuichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian
    • Channels on YouTube and Vimeo with videos of certain books;
    • Tate video about William Klein which shows his assistant with one of Klein’s early maquettes:
    •  José Navarro discussing OCA students’ photobooks
    OCA Student links Joe Wright

    Assignment 5: Perspectives on Kyrgyztstan

    ————————————-

    Photobooks offer a tactile one-to-one viewing experience for the reader were they control the place and time.  Photographer/designer can give detailed narrative guidance through the images by linear sequencing and juxtaposition in page layout. At the same time, the reader is freer to override this design and establish their own viewing experience.

    !! Rough notes and links. !! To be significantly updated for assessment with detailed

    Photobook Key Inspiration

    https://illustration.zemniimages.info/martin-parr
    https://illustration.zemniimages.info/alec-soth

    !! Sketchbook analysis of page design and layout of key sources of inspiration. bearing in mind copyright issues.

    Photobook History

    Early photobooks

    Many of these were topographic images for travel and tourism.

    • Francis Frith photographs from travels to Middle and Far East
    • John Thomson photographs from travels to Middle and Far East
    • Maxime Du Camp (1822–94)
    • Auguste Salzmann (1824–72)
    • Josiah Dwight Whitney (1819–96) published The Yosemite Book in 1868.

    Some developed more innovative design

    • Soviet and Fascist propaganda books with novel design features, such as fold-out pages that extend the dimensions of an image
    • Japanese Photobooks
    Colour
    • Martin Parr: documentary photographer. Some of his works have been mass produced and re-printed (e.g. The Last Resort, 1986 and 1998); others have been limited editions or even more exclusive artist’s books such as Cherry Blossom Time in Tokyo, 2001. See: www.martinparr.com/books/. Layout in Last Resort has one, or very occasionally two, large images per spread, with white margin around and no border. This focuses attention on the content of the socially complex saturated colour images. There is a short introductory text at the beginning.
    • Paul Seawright : Invisible Cities a very large hardback book of colour images. Some images are full bleed crossing the whole spread, sometimes with some space to one side or top/bottom. Other spreads have only one half page image generally placed full bleed to one corner with the rest of the spread as white space. There is a text introduction to African cities at the beginning.
    • Urbex ‘Beauty in Decay’ this has beautiful limited palette images . The book is divided into chapters with some introductory text. But the book is mostly large images with  whitespace. Some images and spreads are on black background. A few text passages are on beige background. Some have black or white boders and vignettes to increase contrast.
    https://illustration.zemniimages.info/martin-parr
    https://illustration.zemniimages.info/urbex
    Black and white
    • Daido Moriyama  Tales of Tono – small portrait format book of very high contrast black and white images. Full bleed in landscape across a double spread on black background. This makes the abstract flashes of white shapes in the often barely readable images standout. Text is reserved for a narrative section at the end. I like the moodiness of this book and all the images demand close attention in themselves, as well as producing an overall edgy impression as a apparently random narrative.
    • Algirdas Seskus ‘Love Lyrics’ Lithuanian 149 contrasty documentary Black and White images in landscape format. No text except the number of each photo and date. One or two large images per spread. No border with generous white margin.
    • Arunas Baltenas  Vilnius  2007 images from 1987. Small misty sepia images one per spread with no border and lots of white space. Delicate handwritten titles and date. One page introduction in English and Lithuanian at the beginning. No other text. I find the delicate nostalgia of this book really beautiful.
    • Henri Cartier Bresson in India  Thames and Hudson. 1987 with forward by Bengali film director Satyajit Ray. One large black and white photo per page with short caption. Black border on white paper. Occasionally one large and one small. The images themselves are quite low contrast. The black border makes the eye focus inwards.

    !! Insert annotated sketchbook pages of Flatpans of these and other selected photobooks.

    Contemporary Photobooks

    At the Brighton Photography Biennial 2016 I saw a lot of interesting innovative designs:

    • David Galjaard Concresco. A book about Albania. Has a brown opening cover with short explanatory text. Then  double page spreads with small white text insert pages. For this and other work see his website: http://www.davidgaljaard.nl
    • Dara McGrath ‘Deconstructing the Maze’  This has two coloured photographs on one side and page of text on the other. The strength here is in the photos. For this and other work see his website http://www.daramcgrath.com/index.html
    • 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
    • Irene Siragusa ‘Six weeks in Dublin’.   Lots of photos of spattered blood. Small juxtaposed rectangular images. website

    Unknown author/title glimpsed over other peoples’ shoulders:

    • Book with glued images folded.
    • Aids (author???).  Small and simple brown cover. Photos of slits one on a page opposite a blank page.

    !! Insert annotated sketchbook pages of Flatpans of these and other selected photobooks.

    Photobook How To

    https://zemniimages.info/photobooks-publishing/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJCLNKoZ8gE

     Sources and overviews

    To do a proper annotated bibliography of a selection of the many photobooks I have in my library. Linked to the annotated sketchbook analysis.

    • The Photobook: A History, Volumes I,  ll and III Gerry Badger and Martin Parr
    • The Chinese Photobook: Martin Parr and Wassink Lundgren from the Photographer’s Gallery exhibition
    • Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s Ryuichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian
    • Channels on YouTube and Vimeo with videos of certain books;
    • Tate video about William Klein which shows his assistant with one of Klein’s early maquettes:
    •  José Navarro discussing OCA students’ photobooks