What are 'Two Frame Films' ?
I think that the whole Two Frame Film project and in general diptychs are pictures or art pieces that come together to create some kind of story. But the thing about it is that every single person can have a different opinion on what the story really is. In the photobooks that i have seen the photographer doesn't give much context about the pictures and that is what I think the most exciting/interesting thing is. I have tried to create a diptych myself. Sometimes you put two pictures together and you don't even think about what they show together. You can let yourself decide what the story/meaning behind them is.
Dypthic Photographers
Laurence Aegerter:
Aegerter created a photo book called 'Photographic Treatment'. I chose to write about her because I found it very interesting that she didn't take the pictures that she put in the photo book. She went around libraries and picked out photos from the photo books there. She took the pictures that she liked and put them in diptychs and that's how she made 'Photographic Treatment'. Aegerter believed that pairing images is a powerful strategy to stimulate brain activity, in specific the process of recognising connections between two images engages specific cognitive functions, involving associative creativity and fantasy.
Photobooks
The History of the Photobook
A photobook is an autonomous art form, comparable with a piece of sculpture , a play or a film. The photographs, lose their own photographic character as things 'in themselves' and become parts, translated into printing ink, of a dramatic event called a book" - Ralph Prins
Anna Atkins, British Algae
Anna Atkins was a British botanist who is considered one the first people to make a photobook. She wasn’t recognised at first because she was a female. Her photobook is very important in lots of different aspects. She showed the world of how to take accurate documentation of objects rather than having inaccurate illustrations, Atkins also showed a new way for the whole world to store photos and a new way to express photography. Atkins was a close friend of William Henry Fox Talbot who was a photography pioneer. She learned a lot about photography and new inventions from Talbot. Another close friend of Atkins was Sir John Herschel who experimented with photography a lot and was mostly know for improving photographic processes. All of this influence of her friends who were innovating around the field of photography, played a big part in her idea to innovate something and she innovated a photobook.
There is few reasons to make a book rather than just put the photos on a peace of paper. I think her ideas of why to make a book were scientific. The contents of the British Algae were scientific, they were pictures of different seaweeds and other plants. I think that for the scientific reasons she wanted a neat storage for a visual of those plants, that gave her the idea of making a detailed photo of the plant and store hundreds of detailed photos in a book. A book is a very easy object to store and view.
Atkins made only less than 20 of these books. She wanted the book to be accessible only to friends, family and local libraries. Which suggests that she maybe wanted to create something that she could review her scientific photos with her friends or local scientists and create a simple presentation of her work and a photobook was a perfect way for her.
There is few reasons to make a book rather than just put the photos on a peace of paper. I think her ideas of why to make a book were scientific. The contents of the British Algae were scientific, they were pictures of different seaweeds and other plants. I think that for the scientific reasons she wanted a neat storage for a visual of those plants, that gave her the idea of making a detailed photo of the plant and store hundreds of detailed photos in a book. A book is a very easy object to store and view.
Atkins made only less than 20 of these books. She wanted the book to be accessible only to friends, family and local libraries. Which suggests that she maybe wanted to create something that she could review her scientific photos with her friends or local scientists and create a simple presentation of her work and a photobook was a perfect way for her.
The object is placed on paper which has been treated with ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide, after which it is exposed to sunlight and then washed in water, leading to the uncovered areas of the paper turning a dark blue."
-- Public Domain Review website
William Henry Fox Talbot, The Pencil Of Nature
Pencil of Nature was published in 1844-1846 since it was published in six instalments. It is very important in the history of photobooks since it was the first book illustrated with photographs. Through out the six instalments there were a total of 24 photos.Although Talbot planned to release way more than six instalments, the book was not successful and he ended up releasing only 6.
The book included text next to each photo/plate which explained the process and how the photo was taken.
The book included text next to each photo/plate which explained the process and how the photo was taken.
Walker Evans, American Photographs
Walker Evans was an American photographer who was mostly know for his famous photobook "American Photograms". The book was released in 1938 and the exhibition of it was held in The Museum of Modern Art in New York. The book is so important in the history of photography because it created a new type of collection in which the order and the layout of the pictures was the most important thing. It set a path for other photographers and other artists to make the sequence and layout of the work matter.
Evans was suggesting that he could create a sequence of pictures that could become in and of itself a work of art" - said Sarah Hermanson Meister who curated the 75th anniversary at MoMA.
Zines
Lewis Bush, Peckham Gothic
Peckham Gothic is a zine that was published in 2012. The Zine is A5 size (A4 when opened), it has 20 pages of black and white photos, printed on 100gsm black uncoated paper and staple bound. Peckham Gothic photos are about a middle class couples life in their 60s. The photos are a very close up documentation of the lifestyle and nature surrounding the couple. The photos are inside their house, of a cat that must be either their pet or a cat that was randomly there, of the couple doing gardening and a few photos of nature/trees. The photos have a quite depressive style. Nobody is smiling, theres lots of dirt, black and white pictures, black paper all show a dark and depressive mood.
Making the middle classes look like depression era sharecroppers." - Lewis Bush's Description of Peckham Gothic
Todd Hido, Collage Number Three
The zine gives one main theme, personally i see that theme being that 90s style. The old school style pictures of women, signs, some landscape. These pictures show a quite vibrant, wild lifestyle.
The cover of the photo book reminds me of a comic book. The font in which the name of the book and the photographers name is written in looks like a font that is used in modern comic books. It doesn't show what pictures re you going to see in the zine.
The cover of the photo book reminds me of a comic book. The font in which the name of the book and the photographers name is written in looks like a font that is used in modern comic books. It doesn't show what pictures re you going to see in the zine.
Present Photobooks
Geoffroy Mathieu, The Dark Matter
The book is a bounce of two main themes. Some of the pictures are simply only nature and some are only human-made things. I think that even though each photo has on of the two themes, each photo explore different situation, place and style.
The cover design is very eye catching. The very bright orange and a dark black on a quite thick card with the photographers name and name of the book give you a very different impression of what kind of photographs will be in the photobook. Another big indication that the pictures are going to be quite sharp, very colourful is the first and second pages that are the same bright orange.
After the first impression from the cover you get a completely different first picture than you expected. The picture is only nature. Only mid way through the photobook you start seeing human-made objects in the pictures. The pictures bring a very slow mood. You want to look at each picture for quite a long time to see all the different details/things that are in the pictures.
I don't think that Mathieu thought a lot about the sequence of the photos. All of the photos are the same size apart the very last one which is way smaller and only on one page. Each photo takes up two pages of the book and the last photo is only half of one of the pages.
The text at the back explains how the book/the pictures revolve about science/the dark matter. Even though the book is called "The Dark Matter" from the cover, pictures or the page layout you couldn't notice that the book is about science.
The cover design is very eye catching. The very bright orange and a dark black on a quite thick card with the photographers name and name of the book give you a very different impression of what kind of photographs will be in the photobook. Another big indication that the pictures are going to be quite sharp, very colourful is the first and second pages that are the same bright orange.
After the first impression from the cover you get a completely different first picture than you expected. The picture is only nature. Only mid way through the photobook you start seeing human-made objects in the pictures. The pictures bring a very slow mood. You want to look at each picture for quite a long time to see all the different details/things that are in the pictures.
I don't think that Mathieu thought a lot about the sequence of the photos. All of the photos are the same size apart the very last one which is way smaller and only on one page. Each photo takes up two pages of the book and the last photo is only half of one of the pages.
The text at the back explains how the book/the pictures revolve about science/the dark matter. Even though the book is called "The Dark Matter" from the cover, pictures or the page layout you couldn't notice that the book is about science.
The Dark Matter project is a utopia, a photographic hypothesis." - Geoffroy Mathieu
Frederico Clavarino, The Castle
The book is quite an organised piece. There are two types of images. One type is black and white pictures and the other one looks something like scanned film and printed onto black peace of paper. The book is very simple and the title The Castle does not really represent anything.
It was a moment where I could step out of my ordinary and rather boring existence, and shape it into something different" says Federico Clavarino
Dummy version - Area (Blank)
I did a dummy version of a photobook. The book is 22 pictures and the name of it is 'Area (Blank)'. The book consists of me exploring a certain area in London in a lot of detail. After taking the pictures in colour transferring them into black and white exposes all of that detail and outlines things you wouldn't notice in colour. Theres is only one coloured picture which I still made darker. I left that picture coloured because I thought that the colour was the main detail of the picture. Other pictures consist of detailed architecture and movement in that area.
I made the cover a black and white gradient to give an idea of what to expect from the book. I didn't give much thought about the cover. The pictures were printed on a black background and that gives a very interesting
I made the cover a black and white gradient to give an idea of what to expect from the book. I didn't give much thought about the cover. The pictures were printed on a black background and that gives a very interesting
Making The Photobook
Influence
I Man Ray, Terrain Vague Influence
Ideas
My plan was to make a wooden front and back cover. Use a laser cutter to cut out the name of my photo book 'Terrain Vague' on the front cover. I wanted something quite new and quite refreshing in terms of the outside look of the photo book. The pages on the inside are supposed to be all black with the pictures as large as possible. I chose the size of the pictures as big as possible so that every detail in the pictures would be visible.
Making
Making the photo book at home during quarantine was quite difficult. I didn't have a lot of the equipment like laser cutter or black paper. I made the front and back covers out of ply board. To replace the laser cutter idea, I made a stencil of the name of the photo book and used matt black spray paint to put the 'Terrain Vague' on the wood. I painted the inside wood part of the photo book all black to have the texture of the wood but a black colour just like the picture pages.
The Photos that I used are all the same just like from the dummy photo book. They are all just like in the idea, they are as big as they can be on an A4 page size and they have a black background. Because I couldn't print on black paper and had to print on normal paper I was left with white borders around the images and the black background.
The Photos that I used are all the same just like from the dummy photo book. They are all just like in the idea, they are as big as they can be on an A4 page size and they have a black background. Because I couldn't print on black paper and had to print on normal paper I was left with white borders around the images and the black background.