AMERICAN SURFACES- Stephen Shore
In our lessons we had looked at Stephen Shore's American travels, we looked at and responded his incredible use of composition and framing. His famous book American Surfaces documents his time travelling across the US in the 70's, the title refers to the superficial feelings he felt during this time due to brief encounters with people and places. In the book he shows us hundreds of his coloured images that show signs, people, roadsides and everything in-between. |
Tout va Bien- JH Engstrom
"Tout va Bien" or "Everything is fine" is a photobook by the Sweedish artist JH Engstrom. The book features very raw images depicting realities of the artists life, despite the initial abstract nature of the book you can tell that the subject matter of the book almost shows the circle of life, within the book we can see an image of a baby being born. Engstrom manages to keep coherence within his images whilst jumping from shooting on coloured film to black and white. The title of the book suggests that the themes should be individually interpreted, "Everything is fine" could mean a manner of things, to me it means that living and dying is all part of the cycle and should not be feared. |
GOLF WANG- Odd future
Golf Wang is a 2011 book curated by the artists from the West Coast music and art collective Odd Future, the photos from the book were taken by members of the group and shows the more intimate moments in the lives of the widely regarded 'Crazy' collective. I love this book and it is my favourite photo book that I own, the Odd future crew are my biggest artistic inspirations and helped me become the person I am today. The photos were taken at the beginning of their careers and shows the new found opportunities that the creatives had been given. As a die hard fan of the group owning and being able to see the images is very special to me, also seeing how each person has progressed since 2011 is incredible. The images in the book are raw and show the DIY music and skate scene in LA. The creation of the "GOLFWANG" book was a very early sign that Tyler, the creator and his counterparts would cause a very important shift in the Hip Hop world, they showed the world that rappers could be weird and that they shouldn't be pigeonheld into one creative outlet. Now in 2018 we see many musicians and young creatives take on multiple outlets. That surely would not have been possible without Odd Future.
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P+F- Places and faces
Places and Faces is a major force in the street wear world, in recent years they have created an empire surrounding the popular figures in the hip hop and fashion world. Many of the photographs from the P+F book show popular figures modelling fashion, performing live or standing by at parties. I decided to buy this book because many of my favourite rappers and models are photographed. The images from the book are shot in a very reportage style, nothing appears to be staged in the images, everything feels very natural, which is very important in the context of this book. |
BOYS DON’T CRY- Frank Ocean
After 4 years of speculation and secrecy, Frank Ocean returned to the public eye with two albums, the Apple Music exclusive visual album “ENDLESS” and the amazing critically acclaimed “Blonde”. In the build up to the release Ocean opened pop up shops all over the world where his “Boys Don’t Cry” book were given out for free. The book features original photographs by Ocean and previously unseen works by artists and photographers such as Wolfgang Tillmans. Since the release of the book the price has shot up to over £300. As well as show casing original photography by Ocean and other artists the book also has poetry and monologues by notable cultural figures like the legendary Kanye West, this gives the book a special feeling. The book was enclosed inside of a metallic bag, until the bag is opened you wouldn't know which cover you would have. The concept behind Frank's two albums and book came from a strange photograph he saw, he said "Two years ago I found an image of a kid with her hands covering her face. A seatbelt reached across her torso, riding up her neck and a mop of blonde hair stayed swept, for the moment, behind her ears. Her eyes seemed clear and calm but not blank, the road behind her seemed the same. I put myself in her seat then I played it all out in my head. The claustrophobia hits as the seatbelt tightens, preventing me from even leaning forward in my seat. the pressing on internal organs. I lean back and forward to release it. Then backwards and forward again. There it is—I got free." |
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A NEW PLACE 2 DROWN- Jack and Archy Marshall
A New Place 2 Drown is a book by South East London brothers Jack and Archy Marshall (AKA KING KRULE), the book showcases the poetry, photography and art of the brothers, They manage to give a glimpse into their creative processes, along side the release of the book Archy released a musical project with the same name, this acts as his second full length project behind the 2013 release "6 feet beneath the moon". The images within the book show the duos social lives and their time in South East London, the drawings accompanying the images are reminiscent of Basquiat's child like images. The photographed images are rough and raw, this almost reflects the South-East area. During the process of making the multi media project the brothers recorded a short film with them explaining their process. Also because of growing up in South East London I find it easy to empathise with the pride that the brother present in the book, being surrounded by so many different cultures has clearly influenced both Jack and Archy in different ways, this is most evident in the subsequent musical project released with the book, the heavy jazz inspiration goes almost hand in hand with Jacks abstract drawings and paintings. The book is bound as if it was a homemade scrap book, this further emphasises the importance of the brothers artistic collaboration, also within the book there are almost randomly placed mirror inserts. |
In pairs we began to create zines shot in the style of Diado Moriyama, the images focus more of the subject than composition. After taking 20 images for my collab zine I started to edit the original coloured images in photoshop, I changed the images to black and white then edited the colour presets to make sure that the images have the grainy effect that you can see in Moriyama's work.
I was very happy with the majority of the black and white images, I feel like I was able to capture the feeling of Moriyama's photographs in Japan. Whilst taking the photographs I tried to capture the raw feeling, keeping the image in focus wasnt a priority. |
Prior to actually making my photo book I curated a sequence off images that I felt fitted nicely together whilst also falling into my theme of colour.
The first section of images revolved around Green tones, The two central images were portraits of my friend whilst the surrounding images are landscapes of the same subject and colour. The second set focused on reds and related tones. The layout followed a similar pattern to the green images however the central images were landscapes of the same subject, I realised after designing the layout that the images fit together almost like a puzzle. The third and final sequence showed blue and in the same way as the previous sets fit together like a puzzle. I feel as if this sequence was the best of the three and are the most cohesive in terms of structure and composure. |
"YOU LOVE LIFE" is a photo book created in 2005 by London photographer Nick Wapplington, the book has been called Wapplington's most truthful book in which he explores the ways that inner truth is hidden by various innuendos and enigmas.
The books concept was for Wapplington to understand why he took the pictures in the first place. This idea is very interesting and provokes me to think the same question, this book shares a lot of ideas with my own. |
A PERIOD OF JUVENILE PROSPERITY - Mike Brodie
Mike Brodie is an American photographer born in Arizona, he is often known as the "Polaroid kid", in 2013 he released his critically acclaimed photobook "A period of juvenile prosperity". Brodie spent a decade freighthopping across the US often photographing homeless people and squatters. The books raw aesthetic is what initially drew me in, the images are honest in the sense that they show the reality of real people living an outcasted lifestyle. The books punk attitude is directly a result of the untamed style captured by Brodie. |