These articles provided a valuable discussion on the importance of order and sequence to create (as well as find) meaning. The photobook is a space where images become a collective piece that can have an enormous amount to say in the placement throughout, rather than existing as individual pieces of art. Robert Frank did not sequence his photos narratively, but used paralleled content and form to arrange them, which has the effect of creating a rhythm. I thought it was very well-put when Sarah Greenough related The Americans to a poem as well as to a chorus of voices and the different types of sounds, ranging from whispers to rants, that become patterned. This is a really interesting concept for thinking about how to arrange images in a book. Frank also did not preconceive an order at the outset, but did so as more of a “process of discovery” after the images were produced. His process was also described as more emotional than intellectual, which I think is a really interesting point to make, as creating a photobook can be a daunting goal at the outset without existing material to inspire us.
Knowing that Frank spent over a year arranging and editing the photos makes me aware that I should be creating work for my final book throughout the semester, in order to have the time to do an effective job of editing. Frank was so certain of the ordering and titling once he had come to a resolution that he never altered them in subsequent editions. I really appreciated Greenough’s comment that in “coupling brilliant insights with rigorous editing, Frank had created a non-narrative, non-linear but distinct, cohesive order… in which images play with and modulate one another in ‘streaks of invention’… calling forth new ideas that no single photograph alone could elicit.”
I thought that Frank’s perspective was interesting that the artist shouldn’t discuss his or her art after creating it, but that the art should be able to convey what was intended – and also that the artist’s commentary might prevent the viewer from developing more personal and novel interpretations. The artist may not even be able to explain his or her creative process that effectively, as seems to be somewhat true of Frank. Other writers have provided a much more lucid commentary than Frank, as cited in Greenough’s article.
Reading these articles, especially the one on Japanese photobooks, made me think a lot more about the difference between montage and isolated images on spreads. I am interested in what that does for the experience of looking through a photobook, and what it says about each of the photographs. Though Frank used isolated images on spreads, his use of juxtapositions in sequencing point to a disparity and opposition between groups of people rather than a feeling of national unity. Issues of politics, wealth, religion, race, American iconography and opposites become prominent. The MoMA lecturer spoke of Frank’s focus on icons and ideals to demonstrate the things that people place their faith in, which become suffocating delusions. Americans can be largely inattentive to reality but heavily focused on perfected pseudo-realities that we will never attain – the fallacy of the American Dream.
The article on the Japanese photobook by Moriyama described books as the best medium for the immediacy of contemporary Japanese photography. This was very interesting to me in having thought about the photobook as opposed to gallery form of presenting photography. The explanation of the history and development of the Japanese photobook was very useful. Dyptics seem to be prominent in these photobooks, with images filling the whole page and juxtaposed in ways sometimes jarring and not flowing with content or form. This emphasizes a dialogue between the two pages and the importance of the spread as opposed to the individual page. This is definitely something I want to work with in my SLP, and the examples in this article are incredibly inspirational.
It is also interesting to think about the effect of having no margins, so that in flipping the page, you are inevitably touching part of the photograph – this really eliminates the “fourth wall,” so to speak, bringing the photograph into reality and the viewer into the photograph. Despite the three-dimensionality of the page, having no margins still does something strange in the minds of people used to reading books with margins. It makes the book more like a magazine, which we look at differently than textual books. We are drawn into the experience of viewing a magazine, which is something obviously intended by their producers. Reading about the importance of sequencing, editing, and layout has definitely made me think differently about my project and the possibilities out there.
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