Assignment 2

My preparation for this assignment is becoming quite drawn out. The brief is to design an image for a book cover - for a book chosen from a set list. The cover needs to be all my own work (obviously) and the image needs to be conceptual rather than literal in nature. The task didn't seem too difficult. After all the notes point to some pretty amazing examples of covers already available and I felt quite inspired. That is until I began to unpick the assignment and I realised that what looks to be fairly effortless, with numerous possibilities for creativity, is in fact bloody hard to do.

I began by having a look at the set list:

Choice - Renata Salecl
1984 - George Orwell
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
The Outsider - Albert Camus
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart

I've only read one of those novels (1984) and that was over twenty years ago. Although bleak I did enjoy it and thought that some of the more personal themes in the subtext could fit with my overall aims for the assignments for this module - this one is a contender.

I've seen the film, Remains of the Day, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Though I didn't feel much of an urge to make a cover for this book - not as much as 1984 anyway. I do like another novel by Ishiguro though. Never Let Me Go is a story that gripped me when I read it a while ago and I've also seen the film recently too. I became quite obsessed with using this book for the assignment for a while even though it's not on the list and would need my tutor approval to proceed. I mulled the idea over and decided the set list is extensive enough and I should really read some of the other books before asking for special exemptions.

I've read other work by Ray Bradbury and enjoyed it though the synopsis for Farenheit 451 seemed pretty similar to 1984 in many ways - and that book was already top of my list.

Far From the Madding Crowd - Yuk!

I've not heard of The Diceman. The synopsis on Amazon states that it has a bit of a cult following. The book sounded intriguing and I plan to read it at some point but again didn't particularly feel the urge to make a cover for this book. If I were a commercial photographer then picking and choosing would not be an option but as I would be relying on a spurt of creativity I wanted to give myself a fighting chance and pick a novel that I would be interested in making an image for.

The Outsider by Albert Camus I'll come back to.

So I began putting some sketches together for "1984." I also picked up a copy from the library for a re-read. Being a bit of a Science Fiction reader the future/retro mechanical elements of the novel (such as the two-way screens, speak/write and pneumatic tubes in Winston's cubicle at the Ministry of Truth) fascinated me. I also wanted to incorporate elements of the oppression that hung over the characters daily lives. I started with the idea of acquiring some cogs or flywheels to photograph and creating some sort of geometric design that would incorporate the slogans "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength." I soon went off that idea as it seemed too obvious, simple, and not conceptual enough.

So I played around some more and came up with an more complex idea based on a chapter of the book. It is the part where Winston Smith is incarcerated and the reference is made about Ingsoc being a party that sees its vision as that of "a boot stamping on a face forever." I thought that that image was pretty powerful and would fit with the overarching theme of the evils of a futuristic Totalitarian State. I could also conceptualise it more by incorporating the boot and face into one by using the mechanical "cogs" concept from my previous sketch. So, I did another sketch and even went as far as to mock up a quick Photoshop image to get a feel for what I wanted.

Now I'm not so sure. Is it too obvious? Is it conceptual enough? I'm dithering now and don't want to go down the path of collecting props and spending a lot of Photoshop time on the computer if I'm not sure.

So. "1984" is currently on hold. I had another look at the book list and chose "The Outsider" by Albert Camus as a possible contender. It arrived from Amazon yesterday and at just over 100 pages it should be a fairly quick read. Only then will I make my final decision.

Update: 24th May

I have finally made a decision. After reading the novel I've decided to do a cover for "The Outsider." I found one of the early events in the book very powerful and it set the tone for the rest of the novel. This is where the main character Mersault sits in vigil over his mother's body the night before her funeral. The scene also foreshadows Mersault's trial at the end of the book. The way the vigil scene was written was very vivid to me and I wanted to capture some of the elements in the writing.

Here are my notes:

The cover image would require a studio shot, some props, and some equipment for the backdrop. Once I had everything together I did some test shots to check that all the elements that I wanted to include came together in the composition as can be seen below:

After some adjustments I then made my final shots a few days later with my model dressed for the shoot. I'd also made some images of interior doors for the back cover and then moved to post processing and research for text and graphics. I've followed the layout format for the original book quite closely but chosen my own fonts and sizing. The cover images of course are completely different to look at. For the post processing I've also put a coloured treatment across the front and back cover to bring a cohesive feel to the images. When I was researching book covers I realised that they can be quite colourful to catch attention on the shelf and therefore needed a treatment that is more commercial than I would usually apply.

Here is my final cover:

Here is the original:

Edit: 5th August.

Further work on this assignment can be seen here.


Assignment 2 - revisit

Laura Letinsky: Ill Form and Void Full - The Photographer's Gallery

The exhibition, Light From the Middle East, that I mentioned in an earlier post was part of a study day that also included a trip to the Photographer's Gallery. I found, Ill Form and Void Full by Laura Letinksy, more appealing after the sensory overload of the many visual styles, multiple themes and assorted photographers of the V&A exhibition. I sometimes feel that group exhibitions can be too much to take in and a solo exhibition allows for more time to appreciate where an individual artist is coming from.

Letinsky creates montages with paper cut-outs of food and utensils from magazines etc - juxtaposing them against blank sheets of paper to create 3D effects that manipulate the visual plane. These creations are then photographed with a medium format camera.

In Letinksy's still-life work it can be difficult to determine what is a vertical or horizontal surface in any given part of the image. The viewers perception appears to change as the eye moves around and could be disorienting. Letinksy negates this with a muted colour palate and use of negative space to counteract the visual complexity. I think this balance is crucial to the work and creates an overall soothing effect on the viewer.

All the images appear to depict the remains of a meal and is a continuation of her earlier themes that refer back to still-life genre painting. I thought that the work was refreshing in its uniqueness and felt quite different to most of the photography that I have seen recently. The large framed images hung together very well in the space and felt like a cohesive series that explored objects, light and space in an interesting and conceptual way.

Exercise 8: conceptual cover design

For this exercise I had to analyse book covers and look at the conceptual use that was made of imagery. The images are simple and punchy and do not directly relate to the contents. By implication they tell the story and are much more subtle. From reading the book descriptions I can tell that they certainly help to explain the books very well.

I have come to the conclusion that choosing or creating images for book covers is a quite different skill set from making images for their own sake. Some of the cover images would be too obvious and overblown as standalone pieces of work. The job of the cover image is to grab the attention of the viewer in a very short space of time and it must be intriguing enough to pull the person in and sell the book - unlike say a gallery or photo-book image that may need a much longer period of time to decode.

I have written my analysis of each image below:

Light from the Middle East: New Photography - Study visit

I've left it far too long to write up my thoughts on this study day. My notes now seem quite cryptic when I read them back - compounded by the fact that my handwriting has always been atrocious. I have an overwhelming sense of a day spent looking at images that dealt with political, religious and social oppression against women. I'm pretty sure there was work from both sexes on display and other cultural issues were explored also. The exhibition didn't overtly set out to only portray the role of women in the Middle East but these are the images I am left with after such a long space of time.

I don't know a great deal about Middle Eastern culture or the politics of the area so it is difficult to say anything without resorting to cliches really. There were some very interesting pieces of work and lots of contemporary practice was in evidence.

Raeda Saadeh’s ‘Who will make me real?’ is such a case. A striking image of a reclining woman, her body encased in a paper cast of newsprint as she gazes directly out at the viewer. The image was quite large almost full size in scale if my memory is correct. Comparisons have been made to the tradition of the Odalisque in art and this could clearly be seen in the work although the Arabic newsprint from a Western perspective only hinted at the content. The meaning of the text (possibly political events?) would have meant much more to an observer that could read them.

Taysir Batniji Watchtowers, West Bank / Palestine (2008) also got my attention. This artist produced a series of images of watchtowers. They reminded me of the precisely recorded typographical studies done by the Bechers - except that in contrast to this well known genre some of the images were out of focus or poorly framed. This brought an ironic smile to my face when I first encountered them and when I read the artist's statement I discovered that the photographer, a Palestinian, is restricted from travelling to the West Bank to make the photographs and therefore used another person as part of the artistic process. I was most interested in this idea and it reminded me somewhat of the days of the BBC using actors voices to get around the Thatcher government's restrictions on IRA terrorists being allowed to give interviews. I admit I know barely anything about the historical and contemporary politics of the region and it is the process itself that intrigued me. A lot of debate around the use of another person was generated on weareoca.com by students and one of the photography tutors. I liked the idea that the photographer had overcome political restrictions to make art.

I've been on a bit of an unintentional break from study since Easter (the mundane aspects of life such as the need to re-decorate my hallway have got in the way) and I have a backlog of gallery visits written up in note form that I really need to sit and down and turn into posts for this blog - not to mention the urgent need to make up for lost time with my course projects leading up to assignment 2.