Biblioscapes Ewan’s Book Club – Online Photo Book Club

https://biblioscapes.com/euans-book-club

May 25th 2023 Book Club

Sequencing exercise and discussion

Every month Ewan hosts the online photo book club where photo-books lovers from around the world come together to share and discuss a selection of publications.

I joined this session as we were to do a shared exercise sequencing images for a photo book. This was the brief:

“Thank you for signing up for May’s Book Club event where we will be departing from the normal format and discussing sequencing.”

Ahead of the night I have created two sets of images and I am asking everyone to create a sequence of ten images from each set. You can view the sets of images and submit your sequence online”.

Both sets of images given to us for sequencing were quite diverse, it was interesting to hear the methods that others had used for sequencing.

The 1st sequence contained differing subject matter and different ratios.

I tried to create a narrative with this set, using associations mainly.

Discussing ways we had sequenced:

• tone
• connections/associations
• Making sets within a group of images
• Look at what stands out
• Some wanted to bring consistency using same aspect ratio. Not for me

We were asked – if we knew more about the images would it affect

your sequencing approaches?

• Do you need an emotional connection to sequence well?
• What would I have done if I was constrained to the 10?
• What I they were square and grayscale?

The 2^nd sequence was more similar subject matter

Discussing ways we had sequenced:

• Diptychs
• Light dark, light dark, could this be too predictable – good point
• I sequenced as if they were to be pairs on a wall not as a concertina style booklet style, so format for presentation is vital to consider
• Flow
• Myself I sequenced to emphasising intent and meaning not aesthetics

Learning:

Obviously it’s the Artist’s choice for sequencing and format and they will have different motivations for sequencing, but it was interesting to hear other’s decision making processes, and to reflect on what affected mine. I should try sequencing in sometime as the sale aspect images in gray scale and see how that affects my decision making.

Next session we will consider sequencing text in books.