Krakow: The Journey, and some upcoming projects.

When I received my copy of Krakow: The Journey, I was pleasantly surprised. Throughout my entire project I had hoped to create something in between a zine, a pamphlet, and a pocket-sized guide - and, as such, had some pretty specific requirements that I didn't think a service as basic as Blurb would be able to provide.

The size of the book is perfect. I went with the 'trade' size of 6x9 inches, a little over pocket size. The book sits well on any bookshelf, whilst still retaining a good size for the photos. The cover image consists of 35mm negatives that were scanned in, the full-sized prints of which can be found inside the book. I went with basic text so the reader isn't distracted from the main purpose of the book; the images. While I think the cover works, I don't think the text suits it very well. 

The type of paper used is a rough, ordinary paper: this is exactly what I wanted. I was dreading opening up my book and finding glossy photos reflecting light back at me. The rough texture of the paper is enough to be reminiscent of a zine or pamphlet, whilst the content and the size suggest otherwise. 

I chose to insert a scan of a ticket, receipt or brochure before each chapter, to separate the sections and also add a sense of personalisation in a book that is otherwise devoid of text. I've only included ones that are relevant: the first one from above is from the hostel we stayed in, Heynow, which was a beautiful and very welcoming hostel that, for the price, offered far more than just bed and breakfast. The second receipt is from the first bar we went to, Alchemy, and a flyer from the night we went - we were promised bass music, and we could hear bass music, but we never managed to find the source and instead had to settle with the fact that, yes, there was bass rumbling somewhere under our feet but no, we couldn't get down there.

The photos in the book are printed to perfect quality. Black and white photos hold the same amount of details as the colour images do, with every pixel sharp and accurate. I work better in diptychs, and as such decided to pair each image up with another, related, photo. There was a little confusion in the Blurb book-making programme about the crop of the pages, and what would be lost - luckily, nothing was lost. My only issue is that in the programme it was only possible to insert one photo onto each page. I had to manually create .jpegs of the diptychs, which were then inserted into the programme. However, the lack of grid layout for images (as exists for texts) made it difficult for everything to be lined up correctly, and some of the pages look slightly wonky in the borders between the images.

I was quite concerned that my instax from Auschwitz wouldn't work well in print. I was warned by a tutor that they might look out of place alongside the rest of the images, and worked more as a piece of art by themselves. However, I'm pretty pleased with the way that they look. Out of all of the images in the book, they look the most comfortable against the thick white outlines of the pages. Textless and solitary on their own pages, the haunting tone of the instax has transferred perfectly from artefact to paper. 

So, as you can see, I'm pretty happy with the 44-page book I created for the final project of my second year. I'm not going to leave it there, though. I've learned, from putting this book together, what I want and how I want to achieve it. The clinical, wordless pages of my book are slightly too sterile for my liking; I'd rather create something quirky, something that isn't just photography but art and opinions and folklore as well. My plan for next year is to create a series of zines (yep, I've decided I'm gonna go back on myself a little bit) based around cities in Europe. I don't know where I'm going to travel, yet, but the first ones will consist of images and information I have from the places I've been already: Krakow, Berlin, and Prague. Then, I'll create a few more, travelling to each city and documenting everything I see. 

And I won't be alone this time. I'm going to be utilising the skills of an illustrator to assist me in producing my zines. I already have someone lined up, but I want to wait until we have some stuff prepared to show you guys before I reveal their identity. Needless to say, they're kickass. 

If you want a little preview, here is the roughest of rough drafts for one of my pages in the Krakow zine. (For the sake of art, pretend there is an illustration in the middle of the page):

I hope you're all as excited as I am!

Auschwitz

On the last day of our trip to Poland, we took a trip to Auschwitz. I shot with digital, film, as well a couple of Instax Mini. Though I obviously liked the way that the digital pictures looked, I much preferred the gloomy, overcast black and white film shots once I'd seen them developed. On a completely different level, however, are the Instax. Detached from the rest of the book due to their medium - and their hazy, glazed tone in comparison to the sharp, accurate photos in the rest of the series - they are timeless and ethereal. Instax, and instant film in general, are influenced directly by the temperature around them, meaning that on a gloomy, stormy day the temperature is low and the sun is hidden, and the Instax are therefore filled with cold blue tones and grey shadows. On a warm day, on the other hand, the photos would be doused in warm reds and glowing floors. On this particular day, the clouds were parted and rain was soaking us all from head to toe - and I really love the way these photos turned out as a result of that. Misty, with puddles reflecting the view back at us, the photos are eerie and seem to stretch onto a foggy infinity. I wanted to centre the main subject of each image, and really focus on similar shapes; and this is evident in pictures 3 and 4, and adds to the idea of the environment in general. 

Being at Auschwitz, at the time, didn't feel real and was hard to comprehend. These pictures are a reflection of that. 

Krakow: The Journey is available to buy and view here.

Krakow: A Journey

"Krakow: The Journey" can be found on Blurb here.

A few sneak peek photos from Krakow

I'm going to be heading into the university to use the 35mm negative scanners tomorrow, but for now here are a few sneak peek photos from the 3 days I spent in Krakow. Though the trip was fraught with disaster - on the first day I fell off a high curb and my ankle was the size of a golfball; on the second day one of my films failed entirely - the photos I did get look fantastic, and I'm very excited to start sequencing the images and creating the book. These are just two images I got of traditional musicians, taken on two different days, at the Florianska Gate that leads from the Old Town Market Square to the Barbican.

Coming soon... my first self-published book.

In less than a week I'm going to be heading to Poland, Krakow, with my best friend of 5 years Becca. It's for my latest photography project (despite there being the chance the book may not arrive at my house before my deadline), but it is also something I've been wanting to work on for a while.

Not long ago, I sat down and thought long and hard about what I want to do with my life. Obviously, I said to myself, I want to take photos. But in what context? I've always been very flexible, accepting jobs from anyone who offers and setting up photoshoots in a variety of genres. I've worked on film sets, created fashion shoots, stripped my models down for artistic nudes, worked a small stint in a nightclub, and religiously photographed events for no-one's benefit but my own. But what is it that I really want to do? Ever since I've been young, I've been obsessed with the idea of exploring. Family holidays were accompanied by me snapping photographs of everything and everyone, and my literature growing up consisted of books like The Famous Five, or The Magic Faraway Tree. I sought after books that could tell me about different worlds, played video games like Tomb Raider that were set in different countries, watched documentaries about the world, about tribes and islands and underwater mysteries.

So it only seemed natural that my answer would be 'to travel'. I've always loved the adventure of going to a new city. I've gone on family holidays from the age of about 10 to France, chose to go to both Paris and a whale-watching cruise to Bilbao when given the choice of activities in high school, and am forever planning my next trip - no matter how close to home I have to stay. Last year I went to Berlin with my uni course and loved it so much that I returned half a year later, armed to the teeth with cameras and film. This year I've been to Prague, again with my university course, and this time I made it my mission to capture everything we visited, even the things that didn't interest me so much, knowing it would add to the collection of images that described the city as a whole. And that is my aim with this project. I'm heading to Krakow, and I'm going to document the city in a series of black and white, colour, instant and digital images. I'm going to portray the city's identity by capturing its overall mood, split between two chapters - day, and night.

My itinerary so far is vague, but I've read the guidebooks and the online literature about the city and can honestly say I'm excited to visit a city with such an intense, awe-inspiring amount of history. Our hostel is located in the dead centre of the main square of the Old Town, meaning that everything is within our grasp quickly and easily. But 3 days isn't a long time, and the budget is extremely tight. I have to make sure to photograph everything with the sharpest of accuracy, both digitally and on film, and can't afford to make a single mistake.  So all I can really say is that my fingers are crossed tightly for some luck; something that, recently, has been running low for me.

Anyway (getting to the point), the culmination of this project will be in the form of a book. Paper-back, and filled with images of various formats, it will be found on www.blurb.com and will be my first ever self-published book. I'll hopefully be bringing it along to photo festivals, book fairs, and am planning on proposing to several independent book stores for it to be on their shelves.

All of this, however, is only the start. Next year, I'm planning on developing this idea into a much larger project; one that will require a far bigger budget, and that will hopefully have a larger-scale result. Well, maybe. A girl can only dream, after all.