Whereas an exhibition operates in a specific space and towards an intended audience for a limited period of time, a publication offers a viewer an opportunity to live with a collection of images, to take them home and develop a relationship with them over months and years. A publication, therefore, offers a very different experience of your work.
For this activity, you are asked to create a ‘dummy’ publication that relates to your project. A dummy is a draft version of your publication in full and can help you to develop outcomes that your project and practice might embody at a later point in the course.
Photobook or publication?
Any book where the bookmaking process begins with photographs is considered to be a photobook. Bookmaking is a medium often preferred by photographers to share stories and viewpoints. However, photography can also often perform an illustrative role that may or may not identify with the typical idea of a photobook (e.g. newspapers). Therefore, ‘publication’ is the preferred term within this activity because it may encourage broader thinking about how you wish to share your work with an audience outside the limitations of an exhibition.
Guidance about the publication activity will be provided in Week 7 should you need it. However, it may be helpful to think about what form the publication could take (e.g. album, catalogue, monograph, magazine, zine, brochure). Some further questions to begin thinking about:
- What do you want the publication to say/do?
- How do you want it to achieve that?
- Do your pictures (critically) support / contradict that intention?
I want to create a book with is image base only. I remember a quote: 
I want the viewer to have their own personal emotional response when they look at my images. I have learnt that how I feel about my work isn’t the same as others. When I look at one of my images I can remember what I was doing, feeling, smelling and fully aware of my surroundings. A part of me has been imprinted within the image which is my own secret message.
When I was designing the layout of my magazine I was fully aware of how the images relate to each other. For me, colour is n important element within my work. How vibes are given off with colours. The magazine starts off gentle slowing introducing the theme and mood. Throughout the images, the senses are developed and the images become stronger and bolder.
I then decided that I wanted to produce a book. My big idea was to publish and sell on a site eg amazon. I have used a site before to produce a portfolio of my work call Photo-box and was very happy with the outcome. It was so exciting to see my work printed into a book and made viewing different and more personal. To have the ability to touch the images on paper gives the images more life.
the above image is the layout of the photographs I have selected. I have a large collection and needed to select photographs which demonstrated a range of my skills and interest. I remember my feedback from the last project which I totally agree with, how my images can sometimes be repeated. I have been experimenting a lot more and pushing how I view my subject and surroundings. Yet again for the book, I have been conscious of the flow of the images and how they relate to each other. They work together and not just by their self.
Gemma Ryder 