Proposal 1

Directions within Photo CommunicationProposal 1- A Readers’ Indents

Books are very important in our world, increasing a person’s perspective and knowledge. However I am interested in how these books have been read. When people read books indents are often left behind, such as left book marks, folded over pages or finger marks. These indents hint at how a person reads a book or what they think of a certain book. These indents may also tell us some information about the reader’s personality/ interests such as the genre of book or how it has been left. I look to photograph these ideas through choosing a family members “library” and seeing what indents have been left onto his/ her read books.

Initially I thought of this idea through looking at the photographer Veronica Bailey. She photographs the many books that emerge themselves in history in the Old Staff Library, unlocking the glass cabinets of the timeless publications. During the process she examined over 1,000 books looking at the unique binding/ page qualities. Bailey tries to create a visual intrigue in her work; this is my aim also, by creating questions from the viewer into the lives of the reader I hope to create this intrigue.

My photographic series that I will develop in the next few weeks will display both an object and narrative context, as I will take each book individually documenting the indents left.

Practically, I want to use a black or white background to photograph the books on so the viewer isn’t distracted by anything in the background. I will do it on location at my family member’s house. I may decide to photograph a couple of the most interesting books in a studio in the next few weeks if this doesn’t work out. I will use my tripod during the shoots so each book I photograph will be in the same position/ distance from the camera. I will also consider whether I will use natural or artificial light, this will depend on how the initial test shots turn out.

Test Shots

 I have recently produced some test shots based on this idea. I decided to produce photographs at a family member’s house and viewed his many war books he has read in the past or is mid-way in reading. I looked for bookmarks/ marks left by the reader. In the shoot I tried many orientations/ views of the books included the bind or just book pages, if I am to take this project further I will need to use coherent compositions in each photograph.