After my trip to the isle of man and really enjoying taking picture of dogs on the island, and in particular other peoples dogs.
The joy of doing this, and how good it made me feel about myself, made me rethink my idea of a personal project and that it would be nice to do something which showcases me as a photographer and that celebrates dogs.
This was also accentuated by me finding the book ‘Dogs Dogs’ Elliot Erwitt for 50p in a charity shop on the island. Which inspired me more to use my photos for a book as I was sitting reading it on the beach just after id taken some of the dogs on the beach.
If I did this as a self directed project I would need to think about whether it would be just a photobook which exhibits just my photos of dogs, or whether it has any contextual meaning. If the latter, on first thoughts it could be:
- Appreciating the amazing character of dogs and their variety
- Making people more aware of how important dogs are to us, and how it is a privilege to have them in our lives
- Making people understand how we need to look after dogs, and all animals, and treat them with respect.
- An informational booklet on how dogs behave and how people can be more aware of this
Tutorial with Beth – thurs 7th march
After discussing this we Beth, we thought of the idea of how to create the contextual side of this book with my photos.
Beth mentioned collaborating with someone who specialises in researching human-dog relationships. From this I think it would be a good idea to look up some universities which have animal behaviour courses, and email in asking if they have any students or researchers who might be interesting in collating with me for the book, or giving me some writing which I could use in the book.
in a quick search just now I have found the Leeds college of animal welfare, who I plan to email:
I have also thought about potentially getting in touch with Dog behavioural trainers.
Thursday 21st March
After receiving nothing back from the college and having no luck with any other students, I may need to consider this project an uncollaborative one right now but I will keep trying some animal behaviourists for nay input.
Due to this my idea has changed to:
Photographing people and their dogs/ just peoples dogs and interviewing them about some aspects of their dogs behaviour that they love. I then want these to be coupled in a book which aims to show people the magic that dogs bring to our lives.
An idea to add to this would be to do my own research on dogs behaviour, which I can relate to what the dogs owners have said, and include this underneath the owners text.
If I can, I would like the book to all be in analogue images. This is why:
I personally believe that analogue holds a lot of emotion in the images. The colours and tones, textures and contrast are much softer and sometimes evoke a sort of dream like image. When combining this with the subject matter of dogs, the result are images which have a strong sense of emotiveness through subject and aesthetic.
‘Even though we’re living in the days of digital, there are still many young, emerging artists who love old media with a sense of nostalgia’http://theconversation.com/why-does-analogue-still-feel-good-in-a-digital-world-25609
This article which speaks about why analogue is coming back and talks of the nostalgic emotion brought by using old equipment. This is definitely something I resonate with due to all my childhood family photos being on analogue cameras. Although the younger generation may not be able to appreciate this as much, I hope the older generation might feel a sense of warmth from nostalgia by the whole book being in analogue.
26th March tutorial with Beth
In this tutorial with Beth today we discussed my book and whether or not I should submit it as a finished book or as a book proposal.
Beth has advised me to submit the project as a proposal, which will allow me to continue the project over summer or pic it up through 3rd year. She also mentioned how the practice will be good for me learn the professional procedure of how to go about getting your book published
I now need to start researching how to create a book proposal as I go about making the book contents.
