Final thoughts on my FMP and the impact of Covid-19

Covid-19 undoubtedly threw a spanner in the works for my FMP. What started as a promising endeavour quickly turned into a frustrating scenario. Street photography relies on your being out there. You can't do it from a home studio, you can't rework and manipulate old imagery and although I do sometimes like to focus on...

Final Book Design and Layout

This is the final layout I have decided on for my book. Front Cover: Inside spread: Example page: Final text: Back cover: I am really pleased with how this turned out. I went through a lot of tiny detail changes to get things to where I wanted them, such as aligning the coordinate text and...

Adding another layer to the book

As I favour a very minimal design, I considered adding a second online element in which someone could learn more about the imagery. There would be an in depth breakdown of each image in which I would discuss things such the lighting, location and my thought process behind the composition. I did this in a...

Book Study – Launderama by Joshua Blackburn

I went to the gallery exhibition in Brondesbury where Joshua was displaying work from this book. I really like this book and the images are varied despite being about a single subject. Joshua experiments with different compositions and shutter speeds to bring life to a seemingly mundane subject. I really enjoyed seeing the images printed...

Book Study – London Underground by Mike Goldwater

This is a great street photography book created by Mike Goldwater featuring imagery taken between 1970-1980. It is printed and published by Hoxton Mini Press. The book us really nicely laid out. One thing I love about Hoxton Mini Press is their attention to giving the images their own space. Minimal text, nice borders around...

Book Mockups

One thing I do that helps me visualise what a book is going to look like is find a mockup file that suits both the style and ratio of the book. I searched for a square magazine mockup (I plan on releasing this book as a zine in the near future) online and found a...

Book Cover Designs

I have designed 3 potential book covers, all of which vary in colour, composition, text position and layout. Street images can have a tendency to be busy, at least I like mine to have an idea of location and setting. This sometimes leaves little room for overlaying text without it clashing the the background. A...

Book Study – I’ve Lived in East London for 86 ½ Years by Martin Usborne

I read this book in the Photobook Cafe in Shoreditch. Firstly, what a place! I wasn't aware of it until I stumbled across it in search for a coffee after a shoot. I didn't go in looking for a particular book however I saw this on a shelf and it caught my eye. The title...

Coordinates – creating interest in a book

I wanted my book to be very minimal and clean. However I also wanted to have something interesting and interactive within the book. I had the idea of including coordinates that give the exact spot I stood in to take that specific image. A great idea in theory. As this book is entirely street photography...

Initial Book Design

One thing I've been set on since starting this book is it being a square format. I personally very much prefer the way images sit on the page and how the square ratio doesn't accentuate any horizontal or vertical lines in an image. I also have settled on having the images on the right hand...

Initial Sequencing

I have started to sequence my imagery for my book. I like to do this by printing out a contact sheet of my imagery and ordering it by hand. This makes it a lot easier to move imagery about and see it all in context. I'm sure this sequence will change over time but for...

Crop ratios explained

When it comes to cropping my images, I'm very particular about it. I've found that certain images suit different crops, different lens compressions suit different crops (for example an 85mm portrait suits a 4x5 crop, to emulate a medium format image). However I really don't like images in portrait orientation that haven't been cropped. I...