First group meeting with Yan Preston

After explaining what my project was about and the intentions behind my current dummy book to Yan Preston, she and Rich thought the sequence worked really well and that what I was conveying in the book (the sense of displacement) was coming through; I was relieved because I was worried that I was seeing into the images what I wanted to see, rather than what was actually depicted, which was mentioned in my CRS meeting with Rich.

Consequently- they told me to explore book making with various paper types, book layouts etc., and to look at other photobooks and sequences. For example, they mentioned When I Was Six (2015) by Phillip Toledano, which explores his sister's death when he was six years old, and depicts someone who was gone but very much alive through photographs and belongings (similar to my theme of displacement).

When I Was Six

There is a mixture of items that belonged to her, and pictures of imaginary landscapes that the photographer created, in order to "save him" as a child, due to his fascination with space and astronomy. In doing this project, it became not only a study on his parents and sister, but about himself and his place during this event in his life; this is reflected in the different imagery that contrast and complement each other.

Speaking of which, the conceptual photographs might be interesting to implement and contrast in my own work, like I mentioned in my meeting with Alex.

Also, because I used film photographs that were mistakes, Rich said it would be interesting to include more images like these within the sequence, to see how they look.

Another comment Rich mentioned was to look back at my notes from last year, to see how I approached making the dummy books and the process I went through, since I did really well in that module.

In conclusion, the meeting was very helpful as it gave me a lot to think about when it came to refining my work, and it has given me newfound motivation for the work, as I now know that I am on the right path to do the project justice. Therefore, I will look at different photobooks to become inspired, in addition to refining the sequences.


Reference:

• When I Was Six: http://www.bjp-online.com/2015/03/phil-toledano-when-i-was-six/