Making a book

First Steps...


As the assignment brief requires I am to produce my own photo book. We have been asked to produce a machete book which is almost like a practice run before creating a more professional version for our exhibition. This process of creating a mock up book first is something I would have had to do whether my brief required me to or not, as no professional photo book could just be made in one go.

I have found a lot of thought and consideration actually goes into making a photo book in particular. Factors that have to be considered include how many images, layout of images, size of images, whether to include any blank pages between images, whether to include any text along side images or at the beginning of the book, the colour of the cover, and the list goes on.

As my first step in creating my book I chose to get my photographs printed one size as 6x4. I then bought a cheap scrap book with plain pages as can be seen here, and i then took to placing the images in the order i would like them and i started to think about the layout of the images, experimenting in order to find what layout and order flowed best.

I wanted my images to be in order of the day begging to end, as I wanted to tell a story of the days events in the order in which they happen as this is a yearly event carried out the same way each year. Also the images are working together as a narrative, telling a story to the viewer, therefore they had to be in order to do so.

Following a tutorial with my tutor I had new ideas about the layout of my book. I had been shown a book where the images spread across two pages at a time, in a similar way to the Paul Graham book I had previously looked at in my research. Myself and my tutor began to print a few different sized images so I could experiment with these positioned differently on the page. 

I came to realise that for my machete book, i would struggle to manage this style of printing across two pages. The time i would need to master this skill would be unrealistic to try and achieve before my deadline date. I therefore chose to keep the layout fairly simply, and agreed with myself that for the final print of my book I could build upon my experimentation with the layout.

Once happy with my more simplified layout I experimented in black and white with how I would print the images onto folded pages ready for making my book.

A skill I came to grasp during this process was printing double sided on the paper. This took a few attempts to ensure the images were being printed on the correct sides of the paper in order to flow in the order i wanted the book to do so.