I&P: The Book

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Initial

The Missing Mondrians,
Blackburn, 2014

[10Nov20] Creating a book about C&N was a pivotal event in my development. Playing with books is now at least as important as my course outcomes.

C&N zine cover

My first book was about Mondrian, written in 2014 and fiddled with since, it was based on Ellen Lupton's advice in Indie Publishing.

My C&N book started with the Lupton model and then updated that with various online sources (see the zine blog). I would be quite content to recycle that for I&P, but I also have Raven and Collett's Book design made simple (2017): if I have time to work with that, it will enable me to resign this year's book completely.

The working title is A Fair Likeness.

[29Nov21] The book is complete, just printing and binding to go. There's a nicely-presented version on the Wordpress site.

Reset

[2Oct21] The course is done, just the book and the result to go. The contents will be:

1. The purpose of a photograph
2. The nature of the portrait
3. 100 Dogs
4. The weaponisation of the gaze
5. Punctum
6. Mug

Work has begun.

Starting guide - indesignskills.com

Basic skills:

• paragraph formats either standard text+ or Quotation
• text

Draft editorial

[24Dec] I have spent the year engaging with things I would not normally photograph. People. My normal fare, apart from routine family photographs, is inanimate.

It is suggested [in the cmat - quote ref] that good portraiture can capture the essence of a character but my view is that, at best, it can only show a fleeting glimpse of one of the many parts that each person plays every day. quote someone on parts, quote Avedon on surface.

Fox Talbot on charm Prefer portrait cluttered with the paraphernalia of a specific aspect of a person's life as this will give a more stable and more reliable indication of their nature than the persona they choose to present to the camera - now Talbot charm. Covid restrictions have prevented me from the most revealing personal location, inside the home, but my series of clergy for assignment 2 and dog walkers for assignment 3 have allowed some insights.

The most powerful lesson I learned in 2020 was in failing to video effectively my 99-year-old mother's funeral, under Welsh Covid restrictions. Having set up the camera where suggested by the funeral director, I was blocked from any meaningful view of the proceedings and powerless to move. However good the intentions, however sound the theory, however careful the preparation for an unknown situation, sometimes photography simply does not work.

And see the blog for the Charm of Context 18Dec and the essay for Asg.1.

[8Jan21] current contenders for inclusion:
• the asg.1 essay, as developed;
• towards a descriptive and evaluative methodology as developed;
• text

[9Jan] The weaponisation of the gaze

[25Jan] Photographing strangers is not an ideal pastime for an aging, reclusive misanthrope, particularly at a time when a government is imposing ever more restrictive lockdowns, nevertheless, it all went quite / surprisingly well.

[2Feb] As a photograph records a moment’s appearance of a subject that may change, so this book records my current views on a number of matters arising from the I&P course (and they may change as my education continues). The book also displays some of the photographs I have taken for various assignments and exercises. It is the second in a series of books created for my OCA coursework, following a suggestion by my C&N tutor, to which I was initially reluctant, but later embraced.

[8Feb] Develop the Suffragists section from Exc 3.3.

[13Mar] A fair likeness.
Fair has several interpretations in this context - equitable, pretty, celebratory [look for others].
Like and Likeness are also slippery - accuracy, affection, similarity. As in all things, I embrace their ambiguity.

Consider the Barthes essay and the Asg.2 essays on Ownership and Uniforms

[29Mar] Look at Voice in About

[4Apr] consider The Mug.

[8May] Fair likeness - Sets the tone for the ambiguity I care to embrace. Quote thingy
Consider front cover image - self portrait?

[21May] The purpose of a photograph - blog

I&P The Book, References

Blackburn, N (2014) The Missing Mondrians. London: Snap Dragon.

Blackburn, N (2020) Brandt a gradual realisation. London: BAPhot publishing.

Lupton, E. (2008) Indie Publishing. NY: Princeton Architectural Press.

Raven, F. & Collett, G., (2017) Book design made simple. Vancouver: 12 Pines Press.