At the start of Week 10, in the opening stages of project brief 4 we used many different resources to get an idea of what a photobook truly is. For most of the class including myself, was challenged with answering what the difference between reading a photobook and glancing at it, flipping through the pages and looking at photographs one by one? A question that defiantly had more than one answer.

When reading Gerry Badger’s article/book on Photobooks it gave me an insight into how photographers become more diligent in controlling their meanings of their images and as a result be able to effectively convey narrative meaning. This idea was something that interested me a lot and that I ran along with in my project brief. Being able to produce photos so abstract in a book that you wouldn’t be able to understand the meanings unless given context and/or follow a narrative. As Badger stated “the words in a photobook are frequently there for the purpose of guiding the viewer toward an understanding of the photographs” and for my photobook it was to provide a story that the audience could follow. Another idea that was underlined in the reading that influenced my photobook was how photobook-makers look at film techniques like narration to tell their story, making sure there is a beginning, middle and an end. So in the creation of my photobook, I have a narration that tells a story about the three subjects in my book. It follows a somewhat surreal narrative, that talks about how their was three friends that lived in naturalistic world (the world of trees, forest and spirituality) but one of the friends felt intrigued by the other world that was next door called the constructive world. The friends try and find him, but he’s lost forever! Leaving them to go back to the naturalistic world and say goodbye to his soul. The photo and narration complements each other making sure that the words below the photo talk to it, which I feel will somewhat help the audience to follow the story.

My photobook much like certain surrealism inspired photographers, use the photobook to look beyond the depiction of empirical reality and take the medium into areas that are highly superficial and change the way we think. Much like Max Ernst, I chose to produce my photos in a surrealist manner making sure to channel the power of the imagination and take everyone who opens it on a journey. Although I did not print my photobook, I feel as though I will print it during the holidays because it’s some of the best work I’ve completed for photography, and as I said previously, I want to share this book with people to get a sense of what they feel when they interact with these photos.