Trees

The more rural photographs helped me decide that I really want to develop this project more along the topic of trees and the amount of lines they produce/are made up of. There's the patterns the branches make against the sky, the trunks all in lines in a forest, the texture of the bark, the rings showing the trees age when you cut into the trunk... I could go on! Anyway, here's some photographs of trees:

Tree rings

What is a line initial research

These photographs are just a few examples of those that immediately became more interesting to me than the lines in the city because there was so much variety in the natural surroundings.

More lines in the city

What is a Line? First thoughts...

I wanted to avoid just searching the internet for ideas of where to start this project so over a period of time I have built up a collection of photographs while I 've been out and about in Leeds city centre. I tried to find many types of lines, as there are so many definitions of what a line could be. Here are some of my shots:

A few mock ups...

An idea involving cutting into a book and sitting another book inside. I thought it linked well with the idea of a shell, where the living mollusc is hiding inside the shell and so the concertina book would come out from inside the bigger book. I definitely think the form of the book could be successful, but how I displayed the content on the concertina book would need to be crucial for keeping the reader's interest.


























This concept, however, is one that I really want to expand on. I really like the idea of giving it the appearance of a fact-file but making it more interactive and exciting. The chapters within the shell families are all in separate mini books within the big book and the shell class is concertina, hiding away information to be found.































































After my tutorials, I was given feedback that this book is interesting but quite fiddly, but that is something I have already thought about and aim to produce it on a larger scale and use card for stock to keep it stiffer so that it hopefully won't be such a problem. The audience was also an issue, as it came across as a childrens' encyclopaedia style book and therefore should have more fun content, but if it was aimed at a broader audience, i.e. for everybody, then I should re-think the connection between content and form of the book. This is because I have very clinical looking photographs and serious facts layed out in a fun, interesting way so they contradict themselves.

However, my reason for that was because I have thought about the audience and wanted it to be a book that anybody could pick up and look at: if it were a shell fanatic, or even a shell collector like me, then they would enjoy reading the facts and statistics in the categorised coil bound books, or search through them to find the photographs to see if they recognise them, but if it were someone who didn't have an interest in the subject, they could at least stay engaged with the book and take in all the content if it were interactive and looked visually interesting.

Found books from when I was younger...

This set of books inspired me when I was looking at making a book that unfolded out into a large poster style image/ set of images. I thought the whole 'hiding' information, so the reader finds what the book is really all about at the end would link in quite well with my subject because molluscs hide inside their shells and you only really get to see them when you open the shell up. Instead of having a really obvious and probably slightly tacky shell shape book where the cover was the shell that opened up, I wanted to explore it in more depth.