MMLSC Maria Margarette L. S. Concepcion May 7, 2013 Art 333: PBC
Research for Personal Project Introduction The research that I have gathered for my personal book comes from various photobooks such as Joseph Mills’ titled Inner City and Vesna Pavlovic’s titled Watching the Sacremento Kings. My photographic style was inspired by the works of Ralph Gibson and the movie called Amelie. Because I created a handmade photobook, I had also referred back to previous bookmaking books such as Cover to Cover by Shereen LaPlantz. After briefly talking about what each of my sources are about, I will then talk about what ideas I was inspired by. Joseph Mills Inner City by Joseph Mills had a very interesting photobook taken with a 35 mm film camera. All of the photographs were in black and white taken by the hip at a fast pace to show the moments in life of passing. Mills captured images of street scenes that depicted gangsters, hustlers, working people. He printed the images on out dated paper which gave the photographs an old, out dated, and faded feeling. Because the photographs were taken at the hip, Mills was not interested in selecting and framing what he had seen on the streets of Washington, D.C.. Mills had let his camera work the magic all on its own. I thought the construction of the photobook itself was great! I love how the cover of the sleeve and end pages gives a viewer a preview of what the book would be about. For my Photobook, I was able to accomplish the same thing. I used the colors blue and yellow end pages so that my viewers can associate the photographs are about St. Mary’s.
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MMLSC Vesna Pavlovic Watching the Sacremento Kings by Vesna Pavlovic is a neat little 3 in x 4 in photobook. Pavlovic’s Started her photobook with an introduction to what led her to create the photobook. Pavlovic has grew up and had shared the Yugoslav love of basket ball so she wanted to investigate the spectators of the sport. By doing so, Pavlovic played several roles all at once, the artist, the fan, the documentarian, the sociologist, and most importantly a spectator. About 4 pages front and back Pavlovic transitioned to the next section by using a black piece of paper. All of the photographs were in black and white placed on the right hand side of every spread showing a shallow depth of field which places more emphasis on the people who are looking. If there was a deep depth of field the viewer would have to consider everything in the image rather than just focusing on the two figures in the foreground. Even though, the background in blurry, the background is identifiable. On the left hand side of the spread, there were numbers. Every spread layout in the book was consistent. This made it easier for me to read and understand what was happening in the photobook and where the emphasis was being placed on. For my Photobook, I used the same photographic technique where I made my characters in the foreground the center of focus using a shallow depth of field rather using a deep depth of filed. My viewers would have trouble trying to figure out what the main focus of what the images were. I used a similar lay out for the text and images on the left and right side of my spread. Even though I have both landscape and portrait oriented photographs, I tried to keep them both at the same size, location, and providing them with just the right amount of white space. I also had text in my photobook but I decided that I would include it in the back of the book just as a summary of my experience at St. Mary’s because my journey has ended.
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MMLSC Ralph Gibson Ralph Gibson was born in Los Angeles, California. Between 1956 – 1960, Gibson served as a Photographer’s mate in the US Navy. Then he studied painting and photography at the Francisco Art Institute. Gibsons Photographs from 1966 were in a documentary style influenced by people such as Henri Cartier Cresson and William Klein. In Gibson’s earlier works he was trying to understand the process of analyzing his documentary work, he had realized that his interest in the hand was a common thread throughout much of his work. For my photobook, I included the artist hand, in this case mine, in the photographs. I wanted to give a sense that the artist was still a part of the adventure even though I was not photographed in all of the pictures except for one which is located at the very end of the book. Traveling Gnome The traveling gnome first started off as a prank. The definition of the traveling gnome prank is the” practice of returning a garden gnome to the wild.” It also means that one has to steal a garden gnome, take it on a trip while taking pictures of the gnome at famous landmarks. Once that trip was over the gnome and the pictures were sent to the owner of the gnome. This prank was seen in the French film titled Amelie. At first I was not sure where I would get a garden gnome. While I was at work at the International Education Office, I was looking around for objects that I could potentially use. There was a manineko neko (the good luck cat), a duck, and a Chinese magnet. I figured that these objects could be substitutes for the garden gnome and in a sense I would also be accompanying my friends on a little journey around campus and to the seven wonder taking pictures of them and sending them back to the IE Office once the project was done. This seemed like a brilliant plan which just had to be done! I took photographs of my
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MMLSC little friends at the places where I usually worked, studied, hanged out, and famous spots on campus. Shereen LaPlantz Cover to Cover is basically about how to make different books like a codex or an accordion. There are interesting formats of the book such as a Japanese Stab Binding on page 68 or Combination Books on page 101. For my handmade book, I decided to use a soft binding which means that there is no book board for the spine of the book.
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MMLSC Work Cited 1.) LaPlantz, S. (1995). Cover to cover: Creative techniques for making beautiful books, journals, and albums . Asheville, North Carolina : Lark Books 2.) Little , M. (2003) Camera Obscura . Washington City Paper . Retrieved from http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/25890/camera-obscura 3.) Pavlovic, V. (2005). Watching the sacremento kings . Sacremento, California : Crocker Art Museum. 4) Ralph Gibson Bio: http://www.ethertongallery.com/html/artist_detail.php?recordID=4 5.) Traveling Gnome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_gnome_prank
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